Do magazines only apply appeal to popularity to encourage people to spend money ?

After spending almost thirty minutes in a grocery store and then waiting in line to pay at a register, customers often get distracted by flashy pictures, interesting headlines, and other important information found on a cover pages of magazines. To encourage the customers to buy the magazines, they are usually placed at a visible height and close to the registers. The magazines vary in information such as politics, trends, fashion, celebrity activities and their views, adult content or pictures of them, tech and design, home improvements, stock and exchange, fitness and health, and food recipes. The most attracting magazines are the ones, which have a little of everything which is mentioned above. I chose to do my research on the magazine named “DETAILS”, November’s issue which talks about men’s trends and entertainment.

The total pages of the magazine are a hundred and sixty two, out of which a hundred and seventeen are advertisements. The first thirty one pages are only advertisement, on page thirty two a reader can see the table of the contents. The entire magazine has advertisements of perfumes, including Burberry, Tom Ford Nior, Ralph Lauren, Guess Night, Chrome United, Ermenegildo Zegna by Uomo, Bvlgari Extreme, Perry Ellis, and Gaulter “Le Male” by Jean Paul. After checking the available websites for the purchase for these colognes, the cost is between $65 and $140. Not even one perfume advertisement informs if it is animal tested or recommended by a skin specialist as if it is safe to use, instead only paid and good looking models are shown to advertise the products.  The advertised wrist watches including Omega, Movado, Tudor, Salvatore Ferragamo, Rado, Mont Blanc, and Bell & Ross which costs $150 to $1400. Expect for Tudor watch, no company has provided the information about the special features stating that how long the battery will run, if the watch is eco-friendly or not, what is different in their watch than the others, and what the attractive warranty is or return policy is available for each watch. All the watch’s advertisements are shown either compared to a beautiful graphic scene or bright colors in the back ground. Unfortunately, even without proper information about products, customers still become a slave to the trend because they want to stay in fashion and want to keep their dressers updated with new products. Anyone who is taking a shower every day and cleaning the body properly, can survive with a reasonable priced fragrance bottle. A watch that cost $25 can show same time and can have a battery which may run longer than two or three years. The appeal to authority is applied if a top model not an expert, is recommending the product then, it must be good.

The magazine also shows the high line branded cars of latest models like Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Modena. The starting price of these cars are $65,000. The clothing line shown in the magazine states that it belongs to a classy taste. Does wearing super expensive cloths and driving luxurious cars can make a person a better human being in behavior? Definitely not! However, people try to find branded accessories to fill in the weaknesses they have in their lives. Moreover, to fulfill the guilty of wasting money, they calm themselves by saying they deserved it. Humans tells themselves that they worth of much more than what the cost of the product is, but do not realize how every little spending can add up to big amount.

The magazine also introduces the models interview such as Corey Feldman and Chris Hemsworth, celebrities and sportsmen routines and their views on fashion. Chris Hemsworth is also shown on the cover page, upon asking eight random girls at campus inform me that the “he is a hot actor/model.” If offered to buy this magazine less than two dollars, those girls would be interested in buying the magazine.

All the advertisements are encouraging people to buy more products even if they do not need it but they may want to buy it, because attractive models and lavish lifestyles make people feel superior to others. Customers should do more research before spending money on anything, for example how safe the product is, what can be the resale value and what the consumer reports states about it? After going through the DETAILS magazine, I could not find anything which can help me to increase my wisdom, information to improve health, wealth and to make the world a peaceful place. Like many other magazines, it is only an advertisement book for less aware people to spend money, feel good and feel more satisfied with lives. 

Work Cited

Levine, R. (2013, November). DETAILS. November, 1-165. CONDE' NAST. Retrieved October 20, 2013, from www.deatils.com