Comment by fenestella
13 hours ago
The cow-print branding was a masterclass in building an approachable identity for a commodity business, but these specific spreads really highlight how weird 90s tech marketing was. I'd forgotten they tried to lean so hard into the 'cowboy' persona for a PC builder. It's wild to see how much margin they must have had to afford these multi-page glossy inserts in every issue of PC Magazine.
It wasn't just PC Magazine, it was every PC magazine.
They must have negotiated some hefty discounts, because page rates were astronomical.
Even so - the incredible thing about PC magazines was that they were read by people who wanted to buy PCs, so the ROI on that kind of niche targeted ad spend was always worthy.