Stuck In Customs: Stop Advertising in Photo Magazines

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 12. December 2011 - 6:31

Trey Ratcliff of Stuck In Customs wrote an blog post: Stop Advertising in Photo Magazines – Head West to the Web. He spent $28,000 to advertise in 3 magazines and found that 2 of them were a complete waste.

He advertised in Popular Photography, Shutterbug and Photoshop User. Sales were dismal with Popular Photography and Shutterbug. Sales were very good with Photoshop User. He came to the conclusion that advertising in magazines are a waste, and instead people should use the web.

Here are the results. Note the asterisk on the last result because it is important.

  • Popular Photography: 10 Units sold = $870
  • Shutterbug: 11 Units sold = $957
  • Kelby Media*: 206 Units sold = $17,125.75

As you can see, Popular Photography and Shutterbug were a disaster. This was actually embarrassing to me. I have a business here, and it is embarrassing for those two magazine deals to lose a combined $16,000+ on a failed advertising campaign.

Trey Ratcliff — http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2011/12/10/stop-advertising-in-photo-magazines-head-west-to-the-web

It was an interesting experiment, but in my humble opinion, it was a flawed campaign/analysis.

Trey is trying to sell his HDR tutorials. The problem is that the photography world is divided in 2 camps:

  1. The people that swear by HDR
  2. The people that swear at HDR

Usually, the people that swear at HDR are the “old farts1” (like me), the people that started photography in the previous millennium (like me), people that used to focus manually but now thanks, every day, the auto-focus gods that still allows them to do photography in spite of the eyes growing weaker and weaker (like me.)

Usually, the people that swear by HDR are people that never experienced film, manual focus…

In his discussion, Trey never mentioned the magazine readership, the demographics… I'm willing to bet that the majority of the readers of Popular Photography or Shutterbug are older people that formed their photography taste long before the existence of HDR.

BTW, I do not do HDR, but I regularly use very similar technology, blending, as part of my commercial work, like:

Pharmsave Centrepoint

Please note that this is not a case of “never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.” Trey Ratcliff spent $28,000 and lost around $9,000 which is a lot of money.

  1. How do you know when you are an “old farts?” I'm an “old fart” because I make noises, creaks and groans when I get up or go down. ↩