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Brands for Breakfast
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Iris Dorbian

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At the Breakout Brands session held at New York Magazine Day on April 16 in New York, one illuminating discussion focused on the manifold ways magazines are extending and leveraging their brands. Moderating the dialogue was Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen. Speakers included Jeff Fischer, SVP/group print director for Universal McCann, Tom Hartmann of Gourmet magazine and Dan Infanti, VP/director of brand marketing for CIT.

“From a publisher’s side, what is the right extension?” asked Lowenthal to the panel. “How do you manage your brand and make it relevant?”
Fischer said it has to feel organic. “It’s what our consumers feel is a natural extension. It doesn’t have to be branded.” Hartmann went a step further by discussing how Gourmet has evolved in the five years he’s been at the publication. “When I got there, the magazine was at its core,” he recalls. “Now the brand is at its core. In the last 30 days, we launched a branded channel on Tivo…The idea is buy a suite of elements to the Gourmet brand.” The whole notion of extending a brand is something that “we as marketers have called upon,” noted Fischer. “It’s equipping yourself with information.”

So how far can you extend your brand? Who has been effective? “BusinessWeek,” answered Infanti. “All the major business brands, like the Wall Street Journal, have done a good job.”
Hartmann invoked Best Buy as an example with their integrated marketing. “They have podcasts, videocasts… This is a brand that is going 360.”
But it all originates with an idea that comes from working in a collaborative environment. “A good idea can come anywhere,” said Fischer. “Check the egos at the door.”



Magazine Day Attendees included:
Steve Giannetti; Ellen Oppenheim, EVP and CMO, Magazine Publishers of America; Carol Irgang; Tom Florio, SVP and Publishing Director of the Vogue Group of Magazines; Audrey Siegel; and Robin Steinberg, SVP, Director of Print Investments & Activation, MediaVest.



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