Hachette Drops Hatchet on Hackneyed Editor, Publisher Titles

Editors ... they're soooo 2008. Or, at least they are at Hachette Filipacchi, which has re-christened its editors-in-chief as vice presidents of brand content. Publishers? They no longer exist at Hachette either. Now they're chief brand officers. The title swaps are all part of a new "brand-centric" structure for magazines like Elle, Elle Decor, Woman's Day and Metropolitan Home, which aims to make Hachette more cross-platform. I guess this is what one should expect from a company which publishes prominent women's magazines -- cosmetic changes that may or may not translate into actual change. Not that prominent names in publishing shouldn't be treated as brands which span multiple media channels, but the "b" word suggests that these, well, brands are becoming more about marketing than they are about content, even if "content' is embedded in the erstwhile editors' titles. As the lines between media and marketing have blurred, the term "brand content" has come to mean content produced by advertisers that resembles content produced by the media, not the other way around. In some ways, the title changes make sense; according to Mediapost, the main thrust of these changes is to push cross-platform ad sales. But here in 2009, should this even be an issue that needs specific addressing? The Web has been around for what, sixteen years?

Well, at least it's now completely clear as to why Hachette became the first major magazine publisher to drop out of the Magazine Publishers of America. The organization's name is all wrong. Maybe if the MPA changes its name to, say, the Multi-Media Branders of America, Hachette will want back in.