Condé Nast Creates Award, Perk for Business-Savvy Editors

Historically, Condé Nast editors have worked in a rarified world where they were encouraged to put out the best quality magazines possible, without regard to costs. Now come new signs that editors are being encouraged to adopt a business mind-set.Condé Nast has created a new award for the publisher and editor who come up with the best money-making business for the company, the winner in this case getting credits for travel. Traditionally, the company’s awards have been reserved for the sales side. And in what would be another first, the purveyor of luxury brands like Vogue and Vanity Fair is also considering having editors speak about their brands at the next publishers' meeting, periodic gatherings that historically have been sales-side affairs.“The editors are becoming part of the conversation,” one publishing exec there said.Of course, it hasn’t been business as usual at Condé Nast in a while. Since advertising nosedived, editors were called on, along with their sales-side brethren, to cut about 25 percent from their budgets following a review of the business by consultants from McKinsey & Co.This past year, editors have been called on to come up with ideas for licensing deals and other new revenue streams to help offset softening print advertising. CEO Chuck Townsend solicited ideas to help the company—Gourmet Live, the social gaming/food app, got one of the first $10,000 prizes.Andrea Luhtanen, president, Haworth Marketing + Media, said efforts to promote a stronger working relationship between sales and edit can help titles at a time when advertisers are pushing for programs that involve editorial tie-ins.“You have to respect church and state, but you also have to know you’re going to get through,” she said. “I like the credibility that has, but they’ve got to change with the times.”Condé Nast editors also seem less secure these days. In recent weeks, the company has removed editors at Architectural Digest, Lucky and Bon Appétit.Elsewhere, editors have been less shielded from the financial ups and downs of their businesses. At other companies like Hearst, Mere-dith and Time Inc., top editors get bonuses tied to criteria like their newsstand performance and overall company and brand profitability.At Elle and Women’s Day parent Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. (or HFMUS, as it’s now calling itself), president/CEO Alain Lemarchand last year changed editors’ incentive plans to encourage them to think about new revenue streams. In the past, bonuses were just based on cost management and circulation performance. Now, they reflect their brand’s profitability and consumer revenue growth from all streams. Editors were renamed vp, brand content and now report to the sales side.“For decades, [editors] have been about magazines only,” Lemarchand said. “It’s very important that they keep editorial integrity because it’s very much at the heart of the product. At the same time, they have to contribute to the business itself.”

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Condé Nast Creates Award, Perk for Business-Savvy Editors

Lucia Moses

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Lucia Moses