Gifts added to magazines

Post Reply New Topic

Do you sometimes buy any magazines only for gifts they added to them?

I don't know how it is in your countries but here it seems a magazine has practically no chance to be sold if there isn't a "free" gift added - a CD with songs of some forgotten artist, sometimes a cheap romance novel, a cool pen, a pair of not too expensive flip-flops, some trinket, small toy etc.

In the very beginning of this gifts boom few years ago I used to buy them willingly even if I didn't need them - my favourite one is a CD with few chosen compositions from the soundtrack from the first Harry Potter movie added to magazine for women Claudia in 2002.

Never look a gift mag in the mouth topic

When I was a kid all the sugary cereals used to have prizes in them in order to get the parents to buy this breakfast junk food. Now, this is not the case because of parents who complained about getting free junk with food junk, and now I think there is some sort of legislation, if I am not mistaken.

At any rate, back to the subject of freebees in mags. In Canada,and in the states, the only freebies I know of are samples of the latest hot perfume/cologne. There are coupons for free 'this and that', usually adult incontinence products or pet food coupons. I completed this customer service survey from a mag and I get the odd free sample of a headache/arthritis remedy. No strings attached so far, as I do not provide e-mail/address information, or a phone number.

All this free stuff is marketing/advertising. It works to some extent. I know in the US you can get free samples of Rx drugs by mail-in coupons or on-line, but these are not allowed in Canada, as far as I know.

Saga tea often offers free teddy bears in their tea packs here: http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/1820/abpo8.jpg

As for coupons for freebies, few times I collected Kubus juice bottles wrappings because some number of people who were the first to send them back once every month got gifts - backpacks and bandanas with their logo, nothing special. I remember once I got such a bandana. 6 years ago I also got a free type cassette with recorded jokes because I managed to collect a suitable number of coupons added to booklets with jokes.

Any other fans of magazine freebies?

yes,am used to get the magazine-Mixmag for years,mainly because of Pete Tongs' page in it,as well as the CDs they put on the cover,mixed by some DJ,or a compilation mixed by pro tools.
stopped getting it a long while back,because the magazine became obsessed with drugs,fashion and naked humans,no longer the serious dance music magazine and the cds became rubbish.

Am used to try collecting some of those magazines which were designed to be collected,like those ones which included cast iron horses on,but would always end up forgetting some.

And used to buy computer games magazines for the demo discs,but theyve got rubbish over the years
and use too many videos and not enough playable demos.
The best freebie had ever got from a magazine was with the official sega saturn magazine-it was the complete first disc from panzer dragoon saga.

This thread is making me feel all nostalgic!
I remember when I was 6 or 7 saving up tokens from packs of Frosties so I could get free books about 'how to be a spy' and 'how to crack secret codes'.

As for magazines, I used to buy computer games magazines and music magazines regularly. Amiga Format used to have some great free games on the front. I still remember my two favourite ever public domain games: 'Puggles' and 'Mister and Misses'.

I've bought a few magazines recently purely for the free gifts on the front.
Computer magazines these days usually claim to be giving away about £200 of free software in each issue, but the software usually turns out to be pretty crappy (or at least not much use for non-computer-buffs like me).
I bought a computer music magazine recently for the software on the front which I expected would enable me to produce my own electronic music tracks. I still haven't managed to produce anything with it beyond some (admittedly brilliant) sound effects.

skysaw,
ever try Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net -if that isnt one have tried,its worth a download,and there's Rosegarden-if are a linux user.
Installed Audacity in Xubuntu a while back,but dont think have used it once yet,need to have TTS software constantly running,and linux doesnt do good TTS.

The magazines that claim to give away loads of software....have always found them to be either demos or limited function versions,not very fair,though sometimes the reviews can be better than what they're giving away on disc if it's about free open source stuff.