Friday, May 23, 2008

Marketing publisher denies crossing the ad-editorial line

Readers who are subscribers to Marketing magazine recently received a free sample copy of the June issue of the new, redesigned Chatelaine. Along with it came a letter from Marketing editor and publisher Christopher Loudon that said "The secret to Chatelaine’s success is its deep and sustained knowledge of Canadian women." and urged the Marketing audience to check it out.

This raised some question of a conflict of interest in the mind of Masthead magazine's editor, Marco Ursi, apparently. He posted an item on Masthead's forum that reprinted his e-mail to Loudon and Loudon's reply. Herewith:
Ursi: I think some people would see this as a conflict of interest, since Marketing regularly covers the magazine industry. Of course, Marketing and Chatelaine are both owned by Rogers, but such an explicit crossing of [the] ad/editorial [line] is sure to raise some eyebrows.

Loudon: For clarification, Chatelaine approached us, as an advertiser, with the request to distribute the June issue.

As you know, we frequently distribute complete issues of magazines (and other promotional materials) to our readers on behalf of a wide spectrum of advertising clients, including Rogers. Among recent examples, we distributed the debut issue of MORE for Transcontinental.

With regard to the accompanying letter, such is a service I would, as Marketing’s publisher, consider for any advertiser. As you can see from the letter’s content, it was neither an endorsement nor a recommendation, but strictly a letter of introduction to the redesigned and revitalized Chatelaine, encouraging our readers to peruse the issue and judge it for themselves.

Also, I think it is important to consider Marketing’s audience: an intensely media-savvy readership that fully recognizes the difference between an advertising initiative (as this clearly was) and an editorial recommendation.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Masthead commenting on another trade magazine's ad/edit integrity is a Friday afternoon chuckle

12:39 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nothing like anonymous posts slagging a publication without details. Maybe anonymous can elaborate on the issues surrounding Masthead?

10:20 am  
Blogger D. B. Scott said...

Anonymous comments are allowed on this blog and we don't require evidence for a comment or an assertion. Are you suggesting we should adjust the bar higher in moderating? Any thoughts on where -- and how -- to draw the line? Is it even possible or desirable to do so?

11:51 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Masthead is mandated, in part, to comment on other magazines' ad-edit blurs. And everyone loves it when it does, except the magazine in question. In this case, it’s Marketing, and Chris "Two Hats" Loudon has obviously endorsed his sister mag's "success" despite his totally lame protestation to the contrary. Can't see him saying something equally glowing about More, or some other direct competitor to a Rogers title. The only person he appears to be kidding is himself.

Isn’t it obvious that the issue is not that Marketing distributed the redesigned Chatelaine; it’s that the editor of the magazine that distributed and complimented it is paid by the same company that produces it? Loudon would be on firm ground had he simply agreed to distribute it (as if he had a choice); he’s wandered into lackey territory by agreeing to write a glowing letter regarding the magazine’s putative “success” (surely not at being an editorial Shangri-La these past couple of years.) Then again, he probably has a mortgage like the rest of us and what’s the poor fellow to do? Say, “No, John Milne (or Brian Segal), I will not hook in this manner. I have principals, for goodness sake.” I think everyone realizes he did what he was told.

But remember, Loudon does not exactly come from a squeaky-clean background. His last gig was editor of Hello! Canada and before that of Kontent’s Inside Entertainment, hardly bastions of monkish observance of journalistic principals. And before that? Well, he was editor of TV Guide (Canada). I need not say more.

Two concluding thoughts:
(i) Stan Sutter, Loudon’s predecessor at Marketing (as editor), would never have stooped to such up-front corporate braunnosing (Hey! Guess why he got fired by John Milne!); and
(ii) nor would Ken Whyte, who is also in that tricky position of being editor/publisher at Maclean’s. Could you see Whyte endorsing anything? I think not. Shows you how little the magazine masters at Rogers think of Marketing, and Loudon, that they even dared to ask Loudon to engage in such puffery.

This whole episode has hurt Marketing more than it helped Chatelaine, and Loudon, had he been witting from the get go, would have anticipated Masthead’s perfectly valid criticism and agreed to distribute but not endorse his sister publication. And Milne, had he been savvy enough, wouldn’t have allowed it to go over at one of his titles for the same reason. Milne is in the same position as Loudon it would seem. These boys do what they are told by another boy who who just doesn't get it. Bring on Blondeau...please.

11:44 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, and Ken Whyte puts ads on the cover of Maclean's (ok, on the flap and that's his excuse)
No one ever commented on that in Masthead. Or on this blog.

10:00 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gatefold "cover" ads are categorically different than letters of praise from the editor himself. And didn't Don Obe challenge Whyte in a Masthead opinion piece for Maclean's Cadillac- sponsored series of "the new Canadian Establishment" series, or some such, to which Whyte was permitted a reply, at length, also in Masthead?

12:00 pm  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home