That's an audio myth and not how it works. Products are requested for review, the manufacturer is aware that a review is being considered so they make sure, usually, to deliver a fully tested unit functioning to specification. When the review is scheduled for publication the manufacturer is notified of which issue the review will be in and they often decide to take out an ad in that issue, but that's long after the review has been written. Yes, magazines generally pick products that received a positive review for publication, nobody wants to read this product sucks, only comparison articles are immune from that. And the sales department likely informs the manufacturer hey, you're getting a good review, wanna take out an ad. But there's no direct collusion between manufacturer and the reviewer.
That's not how this usually works. Most magazines keep reviews and sales separate, that we agree.
But advertisers get the
priority for the queue . Now here's the catch. Because there are many advertisers and new products (NuPrime alone came up with 6 new products in the past 2 months, even as paid advertiser, we will be very lucky if we can get two products reviewed), the queue is very very long. For non advertiser, practically no chance of getting products reviewed.