Hasta La Creative!

Time Inc., the nation’s largest magazine publisher, is running Verizon Wireless ads this week and next on the cover of two of its most iconic titles, Time and Sports Illustrated. The ads are tiny, but their arrival puts a big crack in the longstanding tradition that kept ads off magazine covers.

The industry’s major players have until now almost entirely resisted pressure to sell cover ads, despite a strong need for new revenue in recent years. That’s partly because ads on covers violate widely-observed guidelines from the American Society of Magazine Editors, but also because most editors believed in those guidelines, which are meant to emphasize and protect editorial independence from marketers.

The Time and Sports Illustrated cover ads, which are likely to both arouse consternation and encourage others to follow, come two weeks before Time Inc. begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange as a public company, spun off from Time Warner to fend for itself.

Continue reading at AdAge.com