Portfolio ya está en la calle

Como ya se comentó anteriormente, hoy ha salido a la venta Portfolio, la nueva revista económica del grupo Conde Nast. Lógicamente no he tenido ocasión de hojear la nueva publicación pero sí de echar un vistazo a aquellos artículos colgados en la web, entre los que destaco la bienvenida de la directora, Joanne Lipman:

Welcome to the first issue of Condé Nast Portfolio, a monthly magazine that chronicles how business shapes the world—and who the players are that wield the power. You don’t have to wear a suit or sit behind a desk to love the intrigue or be fascinated by the winners and losers. We see the business angle in every story, from politics to art, technology to entertainment.

y la siempre sarcástica forma de ver el mundo de los negocios de Tom Wolfe - insufrible su lectura online, por cierto-.

¿Qué se está diciendo en la blogosfera? Irin Carmon y Stephanie Smith han concluido en Women’s Wear Daily que desde el punto de vista publicitario, la revista ha conseguido su objetivo de dirigirse a un tipo de público más top que el de sus competidores,

The original goal of attracting more business and financial advertisers to Condé Nast's fashion and luxury ad base appears to have been met, in the launch issue, at least: Of the 53 business advertisers appearing in the debut issue, 20 were new to the company and another 10 had run in just one Condé Nast title in the last two years, primarily in titles like Wired and Golf Digest.

The final ad page balance is a roughly 50-50 mix of endemic financial and business advertising with luxury, travel and automotive brands. Among the advertisers are Accenture, BMW, De Beers, Grey Goose, Prudential and Credit Suisse. Half the 10 Web sponsors of portfolio.com are financial advertisers.

The first five spreads of the magazine are designated for business brands, to convey Portfolio's identity as a business title, said vice president and group publisher David Carey. Ralph Lauren appears as the first luxury brand, with a three-page unit surrounding Lipman's editor's letter. The 32 remaining fashion and luxury advertisers in the first issue include Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Patek Philippe and Rolex.

Para Jon Friedman, de Marketwatch, da igual los 100 o 125 millones de dólares gastados en su lanzamiento o la calidad que la revista tenga: siempre tendrá sus detractores y críticos:

Portfolio could sell a million ad pages and win 75 journalism prizes — and these accomplishments wouldn’t encourage the skeptics to declare the venture an unqualified success.

Keith Kelly considera en The New York Post que la aparición de la nueva revista pone de relieve la verdadera batalla entre dos titanes del sector: Time Inc. y Conde Nast:

For years, the publishing titans rarely clashed: Condé Nast’s fashion titles such as Vogue had the women, and Time Inc., with Fortune, Sports Illustrated and Time, had the men. (...)

Por último, Nadine Rubin se pregunta en ABC News: ¿por qué ahora?

Over past two years, numerous glossy magazines have folded and even print’s staunchest defenders admit that advertising dollars are trending toward the Internet.

I can count about 16 titles of notable size that have shut down during the last 18 months,’ says Bill Mickey, a senior editor at Folio, a trade publication that covers the magazine industry.

Amid this print-publishing slump, the business titles suffered the biggest collective ad revenue losses of any single magazine category in 2006, according to an analysis in Folio of the 2006 PIB Revenue & Pages. Those most affected include such Portfolio competitors as Fast Company, Forbes and BusinessWeek.

Seguro que esto es tan sólo el principio.