Originally Posted By Nick_H
excuse my ignorance would Morgan have to pay to have their cars featured in magazines? or as i have always though been free if the magazine wanted to write about it?


Nick, I left this because I hoped SteveD would come along and answer this question from a far better informed position than I! I am sure he will look in on this thread soon but in the interim, here is my very basic understanding.

Car magazine reviews fall into 3 categories: -

Launch
General Content/Editorial
and lastly, and more recently, Running Reports

To break them down -

Launch - the magazines are not "paid" to review the new car; however, there is a fair amount of 'payola' used to grease the wheels. I believe it is kindly referred to as "corporate entertaining", aka putting the journalists up in a nice hotel, in an (often) warm country and wining and dining them for a few days. So while no money exchanges hands, the basic idea is: treat them well at your cost and hope this will entice them into writing nice things about your car.

General Content/Editorial - this seems to fall into the symbiotic relationship side of motor magazines and car companies. Car company provides a car at no cost for a short period of time (2-days to a few weeks), the journalists review the car (often comparing it to a rival) in the hope that it will provide the sort of content that entices the target audience to buy the magazine. The basic formula would seem to be: Car maker needs people to be aware of their product and journalist needs editorial to fill the pages of the magazine to entice buyers of the publication - symbiotic and I believe free from any real 'corporate hospitality'.

Running Reports - the individual journalist (freelancer) or the magazine itself, work out a deal with a car maker to run their car for 12-months or so. Either the car is provided for free (and returned after the stated period of time) in return for publicity or the car is purchased at a significant discount (by the freelancing journalist) for the same reason.

There are other variants of the themes; however, my understanding was that no money exchanges hands but there are 'perks'.

...I'll now wait for SteveD to correct me! read grin2