Is That an Ad on the Cover of 'ESPN'?

The slippery slope gets more slippery still. Having seen Esquire applauded by the American Society of Magazine Editors for implanting an ad within its cover, ESPN The Magazine is taking things further with a Powerade ad that, on the face of it, would seem to violate the group's guidelines governing the independence of editorial content from advertising.

The new issue of ESPN features a fold-over flap that obscures half the cover. Small print on it reads "(You wouldn't settle for an incomplete cover)". On the reverse side of the flap, the copy continues, "Then don't settle for an incomplete sports drink," above a picture of a Gatorade bottle*.

While the Esquire ad also made use of cover flaps, it managed to stay on the right side of ASME's guidelines (or at least of ASME's interpretation of the guidelines), apparently because the ad could only be seen when the flap was open. In ESPN's case, on the other hand, the ad copy is the first thing one sees. It's hard to square this with ASME's mandate that the cover be exclusively "editorial space."

I asked ASME CEO Sid Holt for a read on the kosherness of the ESPN ad unit, but he hadn't yet seen it. He promised to get back to me with an answer later.

Clarification: The original wording of this item made it seem as if the ad in question was for Gatorade. Although the bottle pictured on the inside flap is a Gatorade bottle, the ad is for Powerade.