The Source is going to stop publishing sexually suggestive ads, in the hopes of attracting attracting mainstream advertisers.
To that end, the magazine announced recently that it would no longer take what the co-publisher, L. Londell McMillan, calls “booty ads,” for pornographic films, pornographic Web sites or escort services. But those have been a mainstay for The Source — more than half the ads in the magazine at times, he said.
The Source hopes to gain more than it loses by chasing mainstream advertisers that do not want their ads alongside the adults-only kind. That’s a serious gamble at a time when magazines are struggling, unable to hold onto the ads they have.
“I realize the risk that we’re taking,” said Mr. McMillan, 42, a partner at a major law firm, Dewey & LeBouef. “But I think when you have the more raunchy, seedy ads, you lose ads like financial services ads, some of the travel ads, the bigger corporate consumer ads like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, technology, high fashion.”
I’m not mad at this. But even if they do away with those ads, are financial services and travel companies likely to buy space in a magazine whose readership is largely comprised of teenage boys?
