I fully understand and appreciate editorial integrity. It is appreciated, in fact. I know that readers will not take a magazine seriously if it's bloated with puffery in which case all the ads are wasted anyway. I'm ok with you not providing us a discount, but I had to ask on behalf of our brand manager. I do think, as you said, "give product quality and additional coverage" is more valuable to us, especially since we are talking about being partners for basically a year.
Please give us till Tuesday to sign the contract. I need to show our MD the contract and the ad fees. He hasn't been in all week (because he, like you, is suffering from back pain and this has been a particularly bad week for him).
Thank you and have a great weekend,