Conde Nast's Portfolio Tries To Live Up To All The Hype

(This is the first of a two-part series about Conde Nast's new business magazine, Portfolio. An interview with its editor, Joanne Lipman, will appear Friday.)

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- To ease the stress surrounding Portfolio's ballyhooed launch, publisher David Carey draws strength from "The Penalty of Leadership," which first appeared in 1915.

Carey appreciates author Theodore MacManus' minisermons, including the following: "In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. ... Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. ... The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership."

Originally, Cadillac used the work, said to be a favorite of Elvis Presley's, in its marketing. For his part, Carey, a respected 46-year-old veteran in publishing, needs all the inspiration he can get.

From the moment Conde Nast announced in August 2005 that it would be introducing a major business magazine, it has been dogged by unsubstantiated but potentially damaging rumors.

The gossip hordes have alleged that Portfolio has been hampered by general disorganization, low morale, overspending and assorted other deadly sins of publishing. Portfolio tries to pooh-pooh the naysayers, but remember, all this has been going on before anyone outside of Conde Nast has even the first issue.

"We'll lead the industry in blind items," Carey quipped last week when we talked in his office, just off Times Square in Manhattan.

I visited Portfolio's headquarters twice in the past few weeks. Based on the shrill press clippings, I half-expected to see a magazine in turmoil. But the atmosphere was quite placid. Even though the pressure was on, what with the April 16 launch approaching fast, I observed confident editors in a low-key workplace.

Portfolio is, in a way, a victim of the modern media biz. Bloggers want to outshout one another; critics invariably find fault with anything. In a period when gossip is king, new rules can apply: Money is dirty. Ambition is something to be mocked. Give nobody the benefit of the doubt.

Naturally, Portfolio is being covered like a big-budget Hollywood movie partly because it carries an estimated $100 million price tag (covering a span of many years). Even beyond its David Beckham connotation, critics have pounced on Conde Nast for having the chutzpah to roll out a monthly business magazine, while seasoned financial publications have been struggling for years to find new advertisers and readers.

The Portfolio brass counters the hecklers by whispering reassuredly: At Conde Nast, they seem to think, we're the smartest, best-educated, wittiest, best-paid journalists around. . That kind of elitism tends to grate on the so-called have-nots in the image-conscious New York media circles.

The gossip mongers love it when Conde Nast looks bad. The other day, the New York Post's Page Six took pains to give noogies to the company's New Yorker, after it somehow confused the revered American poet Robert Frost with British chat-show host David Frost. Would any other magazine have been singled out? Probably not.

Portfolio's people suspect that their competitors -- feeling threatened, envious or just plain scared -- are spreading the bad news. (As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't trying to get you.) Whatever. I've never witnessed a more heavily publicized buildup to a magazine's first issue. Will we hail a "Titanic" success or bemoan a "Gigli" fiasco?

"I'm glad we had the chance to touch on the current dynamic with the competition," Carey told me in an e-mail after the interview. "It's a funny thing -- we don't really focus on them at all.. But I sense it's not the same in the other irection. But your guess is as good as mine regarding why others are so focused on us -- we're running on our individual strategy, and the activities of Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek are not material to us."

Gunning for ads and readers

Shed no tears for Conde Nast, though. Naturally, the proud, privately owned publisher is in the game to make money, and the stakes are indeed high. By coupling Portfolio with its existing business magazine, San Francisco-based Wired, Conde Nast hopes to gain a foothold in what has the potential to be a lucrative arena.

Conde Nast could challenge Time Warner's magazine arm, Time Inc. , and its Fortune, Money and Business 2.0, for coveted luxury-goods advertisers and affluent readers.

Dealing with gossipy bloggers is nothing new to Carey. He moved over to Portfolio after a well-regarded run as the publisher of the New Yorker.Carey said that the first issue of Portfolio will have 95 advertisers, 53 of which are business-to-business; 20 of these 53 clients are new to Conde Nast, and another 10 currently run in just one company title. The second issue of Portfolio will appear in September and it will adapt a monthly schedule at that point.

"That was an important objective for us -- to broaden the company's presence in the core business advertising sector," according to Carey. "The follow-on issues for September, October and November look strong as well."He pointed out that the newsstand distribution has been raised to 200,000 copies, up from an original estimate of 135,000, based on strong orders for copies from airports and bookstores. Carey said that Portfolio will keep a low profile after the launch. "In a 'normal' environment, we would hire a big brass band and march it down Fifth Avenue. But with so many titles closing and people being laid off, we want to be sensitive to the environment. We're very proud of what we accomplished so quickly, but will have to calibrate how we communicate that to the press and to the marketplace. That's the only real thing I'm worried about -- strong early success while so many other titles and companies are so troubled. It means we'll be a bit quieter -- but perhaps smarter -- in our launch ad campaign."

As Monday's launch approaches, Carey will be thinking again about the lessons contained in "The Penalty of Leadership."

"I'm going to send it to my whole team," he pledged.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: Will Portfolio be a hit, a flop or something in between?

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By Jon Friedman