It’s been two-and-a-half years since I moved over from KidScreen to enter the Strategy fold as editor, and it’s been endlessly fascinating.
I’ve met a lot of people who are passionate about what they do, like Cadbury’s VP marketing John Bradley on the topic of chocolate or Frank Palmer on how to run an agency (or pranks), as well as our own incomparable John Burghardt and Barry Base on what’s right and wrong (respectively) with everything you’re putting out there – and most importantly, why.
When I first became involved with Strategy I called many of you to find out what you liked and disliked about all the advertising and marketing media you consumed.
A lot of the feedback revolved around not parroting the superlatives often dished out about new campaigns and ventures, and about challenging the reasoning and results.
We instituted the feature ‘What Were They Thinking?’ opened the floor up to you with our ‘Rants & Raves’ feature (go online anytime and dish), and kept that challenging mode in mind with every story, to safeguard against anyone pretending to see the emperor’s new clothes.
Another request was to serve as more of a forum, sharing execs’ wisdom on the topics of the day. To deliver it verbatim and unfiltered, we developed regular features like ‘CounterStrategy,’ wherein experts share thoughts on how to solve a specific marketing problem, and ‘Wars,’ which post-mortems the creative and marketing strategy in hotly competitive categories.
Now, as editorial director at Strategy’s parent company, Brunico, I’m moving on to a wider cross-publication remit (oh look, I buried the lead, again), but I leave you in good hands.
Most of you already know Strategy’s new editor Duncan Hood, and new associate editor Lisa D’Innocenzo. Duncan launched Strategy MEDIA, our latest new venture, and has been getting such rave reviews with it, it’s now time for him to take on the whole book. Lisa, who has been expertly helming the upfront section of Strategy as news editor, has his back, overseeing the main part of Strategy, while our ‘Boards recruit Sara Minogue is now moving up to take on the special reports remit solo, as editor thereof.
The whole team (including intrepid campaign spotter Kristen Vinakmens, media/agency issue expert Patti Summerfield, eagle-eyed copy chief Paula Costello and warped-by-too-much-time-on-the-Web cartoonist J.K. Benton) has been a joy to work with, and has the right blend of insight, passion and curiosity to satisfy the ‘no bullshit’ mandate you gave us way back then, and take it to new heights. Over to you gang…
Mary Maddever, VP, editorial director
O.K., I admit it: Part of me wants to announce that a revolution is imminent here at Strategy.
But that’s not going to happen.
Like all good marketers, we know that success lies in finding our niche and serving it well. We’ve already done that: we know who we’re writing for and what they want, and we’re going to continue to do that in the years to come.
Plus, I learned just about everything I know about marketing, reporting and running a publication from Mary, so despite some in-house job-hopping prompted by Mary’s promotion, what we’re looking at here is evolution rather than revolution.
As Mary did when she began editing Strategy, I’m planning to spend the next few months meeting as many marketers as I can.
Many of you market consumer goods, so you’re well aware of how important it is that your products evolve to meet consumer demand. Our product is a magazine, and it evolves every two weeks, so we’re sensitive to keeping up.
So what is it that you want? Here’s my working hypothesis – give me a call if I’m wrong: I think you want useful marketing insight that helps you do your job. I think you want to stay on top of what your competition is doing. I think you want to keep abreast of national and international trends in marketing, you want to know who’s who and who’s where, and you need this packaged in an appealing, easy-to-read pub that you can skim through over lunch.
I guess that’s hardly rocket science (and I actually do know a little about rocket science), but it’s a good place to start. The proof will be in the execution, so as they say in the out-of-home biz, watch this space.
Duncan Hood, editor
