Mr. Magazine

The countdown continues for the launch of Condé Nast Portfolio with the media reporters and the bloggers running competitions on who will grace the first cover and where the image of the cover will first appear. Media Industry Newsletter online is running a Quick Pulse survey asking its readers Where will the Condé Nast Portfolio launch cover first appear? Advertising Age, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or Other… to cast your own vote click here. My friend Rex Hammock, of Hammock publishing already voted for the other option. Rex thinks it is going to be on Portfolio.com that will launch on Monday. I will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, here is some more information about the most talked about launch of the year. “Condé Nast’s launch methodology, developed over the course of several award-winning product introductions, schedules a pause between the first and second issues,” says a Confidential Closing Report for Charter Advertisers sent to the magazine advertisers. This strategy was first used with the launch of Lucky, then Domino, and now Portfolio. All three are Condé Nast properties. It “enables a new property to gather extensive feedback and implement any recommended fine-tuning immediately for the second issue and beyond.” The first issue of Condé Nast Portfolio carries 185 ad pages divided among 95 charter print advertisers representing “the largest single collection of blue-chip brands ever found in a magazine in the business category.” Portfolio.com launches with “ten exclusive charter advertisers, a tier-one group of financial, technology, and travel marketers,” the report stated. The second issue of the magazine will be out August 21 and commences its monthly frequency with a 350,000-rate base. Portfolio.com 2.0 will go live in September. To quote David Carey, the group president and publishing director, “It has been years since a new magazine arrived in the marketplace with this level of ambition — and heft.” I agree wholeheartedly. 36 more hours to wait…and counting … 35 hrs, 59 seconds, 58, 57, 56…..