min magazine 2008 Most Intriguing: Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio
Friday, November 7, 2008

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Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio
Vice President/Publisher, WSJ.

Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio wasn’t born into a life of luxury, but she’s certainly become the queen of the category in her professional life. Under Asmodeo’s direction as senior vice president and publisher of Travel & Leisure, the magazine enjoyed 55 percent growth in revenue and saw the brand extend into six countries. So the middle-class kid from Co-op City in the Bronx elegantly salivated at the chance to launch the Wall Street Journal brand into the luxury category—with WSJ. in September. “This is an amazing opportunity,” she says. “We have an exclusive built-in audience and distribution system that makes this a strong proposition right off the bat. We don’t need to find an audience—we know them—and they trust us.”

She adds that intensive marketing research indicated that Journal readers weren’t just ready for this magazine…they were demanding it. “When we launched Weekend Edition in 2005, 98 percent of subscribers sent us their weekend addresses for subscriptions that would reach them on weekends,” she says. “That was a clear indication they wanted more lifestyle content.”

And despite troubled economic times, she likes WSJ.’s chances to cash in big. “High-end businesses are still doing well, and that’s where our advertisers are,” she says. “The luxury brands (Hermès, Dior, and Louis Vuitton, Moët/Hennessy) linked onto us quickly. We have two-year contracts with some of them. We have 19 new advertisers to the franchise. We didn’t have a single free ad in the issue.” So with Asmodeo’s golden touch and the Journal, the future of WSJ. seems paved with gold.



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