The readers' editor on … coping with the changing shape of advertising

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/04/changing-shape-of-advertising

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In the past few years advertisements have leapt out of their accustomed slots below the fold of the Guardian to appear in a variety of shapes and forms; the L shape, the chimney, or funnel, on the inside, and on the outside the bookmark half page. On Friday 26 October the Guardian carried its first full wraparound advertisement, for Vodafone, part of a £4m campaign by the company across the media.

Many readers, especially those who identified themselves as Guardian subscribers, objected: "I'm sorry, but the front-back Vodafone cover made me not want to buy the Guardian today. I did, because I love the paper, but it was a real repellent. I know advertising keeps newspapers alive – and those 'border' adverts, that stand out, are OK – but when it blocks the very thing I buy the Guardian for, the news, and, more importantly, the Guardian's take on the news, not just for me, the regular buyer but also for the people who buy other papers but see your headlines, well, it's horrible."

Some saw irony in a series of advertisements for Vodafone, a company that has been the subject of allegations of tax avoidance often reported in the pages of the paper. One wrote: "Are you trying to see how far you can push your readers before we crack? Please don't ever wrap my daily newspaper in a giant advert for a notorious tax-avoiding company again, because if you do I shan't buy it."

And then last Wednesday Vodafone's rivals in the new market for 4G networks, EE, swept into the pages of the Guardian, dominating the advertising slots for the first 20 pages. This prompted another smaller flurry of complaints about saturation.

So far there have been 34 complaints about the scale of the advertising by broadband companies. There were also a further 34 complaints about an earlier series of ads that involved the half wraparounds or "bookmark" ads, which appeared on 17 September 2012. The chief complaint, unsurprisingly, the vertical front half page advertisement is attached to the back page, but because of its size both parts tended to pull away more easily than two full pages.

Some readers appeared to enjoy the challenge: "I will not be able to sleep at night having purchased today's edition without knowing if I have a rare copy. Looking as if the front cover had a small tear, upon closer inspection outside the newsagent I actually have one-and-a-half front pages with an incomplete advertisement for First Direct on the reverse. The actual back page of the real paper has the obituaries. Offers please? Never knowingly undersold."

A lot of readers feel there is a higher advertising-to-editorial ratio than there was once was. Paul Johnson, a deputy editor, said this is not the case: "There isn't a strict ad-editorial ratio [it's roughly 50-50]. G1 is built on editorial minimums – through national, international, financial [pages]. We have a whole series of rules about what ads can go on pages one two and three, the number of pages without ads etc. For instance, we don't have advertising on our comment pages."

Some proposals for advertising shapes are turned down as being too intrusive, says Johnson, but the demand for different positions is strong: "Advertisers – or advertising agencies – have got much more demanding and adventurous in recent years. We take some of the different configurations put up, believing that we can design good editorial pages around them."

The wraparound may be a new departure, but it is only 60 years ago that "ads" made way for news on the front of the Guardian and there have been occasional instances of irregular shapes since. CP Scott's essay celebrating the centenary of the Guardian, published in 1921, made much of the balance between the material and the moral life of a newspaper. However, he was clear that the balance should tip towards the latter as a guiding principle of purpose while recognising that the Guardian needed to be a business to survive.

That hasn't changed. So the Guardian feels that even when the innovative shape can occasionally be awkward for some, it is a revenue stream that supports nearly 50% of the costs of publication. What do other readers think? What would you do?