How do I get brands to advertise in a magazine?

[A Dude =P]

So basically, I am the head of my Journalism college corporate entity. We are creating 2 magazines, one for the college and the other one for the whole city based on culture and society.
We've approached around 20 brands for advertisment because we need their money to get our magazine printed. None of them agreed to advertise because apparently we are "too young", "un-reliable", "college teenagers" and "unprofessional."

We work as part of a proper college corporate program administered by some of the best corporate workers and we are not what these brands label us!

How do I convince them to place an ad? What other options do I have if I want to print this magazine?

[SuperMadMax]

Ad sales is a very, very competitive industry.

Given that you have no experience I would to try advertising sales outsourcing, they are companies who specialise in selling the space on your behalf. Many will not require payment upfront by will take up to 50% of the revenue.

[Stein]

Offer them free advertising.. if they see good results, they will want to stay for the long term.

The problem is, you need their money to get printed, while they care more about your reach. Of course you can't sell advertising when you can't really tell your advertisers how many people actually read your magazine.

Have a popular magazine and advertising opportunities will come to you. That's how the game is played, not the other way around.

[Georgina]

As a marketing and brand manager with experience from the brand point of view I can give you some advice - a brands budget especially these days is VERY precious and very tight and they must spend wisely.

Advertising does NOT work unless a series of advertisements are placed and the response is hard to measure.

Too many magazines want to play 'Editors' whilst writing / researching nothing themselves or providing any value to the brand or readers.

You need to sell the access to the database you have firstly and be creative about how you can include them in the magazine - offering adverts is lazy. Doing a feature, interview, editorial etc is the way to go and will properly educate readers about their brand.

All the best