Metro! Metro!
Magazine analysis: Metro Magazine (July 2011 Issue)
Metro is considered one of the top, famous magazines in the country today. Not only because it caters and offers high-end fashion and beauty tips, it also features famed artists locally as well as stylists and all those that walk the steps of the fashion world.
Metro magazine is a magazine from the ABS-CBN Publishing house. So it is not surprising to know that most of the covers were artists from ABS-CBN. Like July’s issue for instance, the cover story tackles about an artist from the network of ABS-CBN.
Metro’s July 2011 issue features Angelica Panganiban, one of the top caliber artists in the generation that we have today.
The cover of the magazine used light colors. Angelica, for instance, wears this yellow dress; which I could assume was meant to be that way or the other way around for the color of the headers / title of articles inside the mag that were shown in the cover.
With Metro, being a fashion magazine, advertisements were everything about fashion itself. Ads inside the magazine also include beauty products, personal care items, and apparels. Some of the products that were advertised include Loreal, Estee Lauder, Guess, Lacoste, Havaianas, Kashieca, The Face Shop, La Senza, Caltrate, Nivea, Zunic, Ahava, Cream Silk, Ponds and the list goes on forever. I swear.
Well since I’ve always been reading magazines ever since, I’m kind of immune to the sight of ads screaming in almost all the pages of a magazine. And to that, Metro serves no exception. First six pages of Metro have full ads sprawled all over the pages. And for the next pages, every after an article, there is an ad spread out in front of your eyes. That fact did not surprise me. But now, being involved in the media world, I could say my views about such ads have changed. Yes, they are still there. But the way I perceived and looked at them has quite been different. I know they are there for a purpose. And those purposes can actually be so moving especially to us, the readers.
What I like about Metro is its creative layout and style. It has only proved itself as a high-quality magazine that showed how talented Filipinos can become. The layout, the colors, the articles as well as the catchy titles all fit into a good shot of the magazine.
Metro has been generally divided into three integral parts: Metro Beauty, Metrowear, and the Metro Lifestyle. Though there have been articles before these three, which some of them include: the pictures of models and their attire for the Style Spy article of The Philippines Fashion Week Holiday 2011, Style Diary’s Behind the Beauty article about Sandra Seifert, a former beauty queen and a fashion aficionado (which I find beautiful, the article is actually cute), Trends section which included some of the in-demand trend for accessories, shoes and bags this whole season, Inspiration – on which the writer discussed the latest updates about fashion, Calendar – which showed that coolest looks you can have for the whole month of February.
First is Metro Beauty. Metro Beauty, as implied from the name itself, connotes to beauty-related items. It contains articles that tackle about make-up updates and other skin care issues. What I am not surprised was the existence of advertorials, though I don’t know that way back then.
There are articles, meant to promote the product. They can also have the liberty to choose who will be the model for their product. There is this section in Metro where stylist experts are seen and their model. It is sort of like an advertorial for me. Because not only that the stylists show off their make-up techniques, they also sort of promote a certain brand of make-up by their choice. So I think for me, it’s an advertorial; still meant to promote the product.
Another advertorial for the feature story of Metro Beauty section was Anne Curtis’ Loreal experience; noticed that the said product was spread out in the third to fourth page of the magazine. With it being said as an advertorial, I still love the article because she was in it. Haha! ;) I love Anne. She honestly showed me that you can be whatever you wanna be, just be yourself.
Metro also featured brands of perfume, skin care items, hair care stuffs, body creams, eye make-ups, lipsticks and cheap best buy products. Perhaps, some of the brands paid the magazine so as to be featured. I am not accusing. But in this highly-commercialized media, what can you expect?
Metro Wear basically just revolves around anything and everything of fashion. It contains much of the same articles from Metro Beauty just that Metro Wear pieces were of fashion. Fashion news; what’s the latest trend and style of the season. It also featured lots and lots of different styles, particularly the vintage look, 40’s look somewhat, which is what their concept for the issue.
The cover story of Angelica Panganiban is also included in this part. I specifically love the way her story was treated by the writer. The writer was too blant during the first few lines but I liked it because it definitely showed who Angelica really is, which just added my admiration of her. I love her for being herself and not minding what other people might think of her. That is who she is, take it or leave it. I also loved how she has shown her own self as a real “actress”, one who acts and makes it her craft, rather than being some ‘artista’ which she claims as too showbiz. I also admire her photos of the story cover. She is such an evolved beauty and a perfect canvass for a work of art, as what is described by Metro of her.
Metro Lifestyle caters about the high-fashion living. It involves food, travel, fashion-aficionado inside story, fashion events and more. This is where everything comes down. I took a personal liking to this part because I specifically loved the articles. The travel guide, the food guide and most specially, the special feature story which is Metro’s Guide to a Beautiful Life. There was little commercializing in this part compared to the first two parts.
Metro is basically a magazine that appeals to more or less, the upper C, B and A socio-economic classes. Not only for the products that were included in their articles and ads, which those types of people can somehow afford, Metro uses a variety of words that were too deep and where I could say, just like the magazine, were high-end as well.
We’ve been living in these times where commercialization has gotten the whole of the media. It is not a surprising fact anymore. We just got to learn how to filter every content. We have to be wise. This commercialization should not get into us. We have to be really careful that this highly-commercialized content won’t make us change who we really are. They are there for advertising and sometimes, to help us meet new products and all for our own betterment, but this shouldn’t change us into someone we are not.
(Source: iamzee)
