Given the choice between reading an advertisement and reading an article, Americans were found to prefer gathering information about products and services through articles, even if those articles are written by the advertiser. I find this data difficult to interpret in the larger context, but if you want to get your message through to an audience of committed shoppers, then issuing custom publications would seem to be the way to go. I still don’t understand how many of these publications just get wasted because they received by people who aren’t shopping the category. If you have an information-intensive product, a way of identifying category shoppers and a large enough audience, then issuing a custom publication makes a lot of sense.

MediaPost Media Daily News – Readers Prefer Edit Vs. Ads by Ross Fadner

85 percent said they prefer custom publications to ads, and 75 percent felt better informed after reading them. More than six in ten said custom pubs made them feel closer to the sponsoring company, and 75 percent said they believe the effort shows an interest in building good relationships with customers. Eighty percent said they find the information in these magazines interesting.