Adweek Re-Launches With Unified Focus on Advertising, Marketing, Media & Technology

NEW YORK, April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Adapting to the rapidly changing media landscape, Adweek re-launches today, merging Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek into a single brand, it was announced by Prometheus Global Media CEO Richard D. Beckman.  With its focus on the intersection of advertising, marketing, media and technology, Adweek revives its print, digital and conference destinations for news, ideas, analysis, and opinion.

"Adweek enters a new era with a renewed purpose—as 'The Voice of Media,'" says Beckman.  "We will amplify all activity that passes through this sector, and with the same vitality as the industries we cover."

With celebrated columnist, writer, book author, and commentator Michael Wolff at the helm as Editorial Director, Adweek will bring its journalistic prowess and integrity to subjects formerly covered by Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek.  

"The media business is in the midst of nothing less than one of the most dramatic instances of industrial transformation in our time," says Wolff.  "This means there is both great opportunity and a great story to tell.  Anybody who loves the media will find the new Adweek a riveting read."

One of New York's most provocative journalists, for the last seven years Wolff has written a much talked-about column for Vanity Fair, where he continues to be a contributing editor. He is also the Founder of Newser.com, and the author of, Burn Rate, the classic book about the dot com era, and of The Man Who Owns the News, his controversial biography of Rupert Murdoch. Wolff is paired with Publisher Erica Bartman, a former Publisher of Women's Wear Daily Beauty Biz, Associate Publisher of Women's Wear Daily and Associate Publisher of Vogue.

Adweek readers will find sharp, smart, original, witty, and news-making reports about the people, events, conflicts and innovations shaping advertising and all areas that intersect. The magazine's eye-catching "Front" section features "Trending Topics," which offers the latest news from the worlds of advertising, tech, print, marketing and television. "Accounts In Review" is a weekly roundup of the major accounts up-for-grabs and who's after them. "The Spot" looks at the making of that commercial that everyone will be talking about.  And a new focus for the magazine, the "super influencers"—those affecting business and culture at large—which includes people ranging from Jay-Z to Mark Zuckerberg and Jay Carney to Jon Stewart.

Editorial features from the inaugural issue include:

• The cover story, 'Madison Avenue Moves To Brooklyn', about how the creative center of gravity for the advertising community has shifted across the East River.
• A profile of New York City-based venture capitalist Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, the fund behind Twitter, Four Square and Zynga.
• 'Detroit City Limits,' about how a new generation of advertising agencies is striving to redefine the auto industry and the now wounded city it created, asking: Are they too late?
• A press story examining how much is riding on the New York Times pay wall.

Wolff has amassed a collection of strong journalistic voices, including: Adweek veteran Executive Editor Jim Cooper; Managing Editor Hillary Frey from Politico; Deputy Editor Chip Bayers from Newser and previously Wired; Brian Breaker, a news editor, from ABC News; Alex Koppelman also a news editor from ABC News and Salon; Gabe Peltrone, a reporter, from Politico; Reporter David Levine from American Lawyer; Hephzibah Anderson, a noted author and contributor to Bloomberg, The Daily Mail, The Observer and Time; Katie Feola, a lawyer who worked as a researcher for the Washington Post's White House Correspondent Anne Kornblut; Janon Fisher, courthouse reporter, from the New York Post; Reporter Erin Griffith from Thomson Reuters where she covered private equity; Dylan Byers, a reporter, and former assistant to the economist Nouriel Roubini; Stevan Keane from the Guardian, Channel 4 in the UK and BBC; and Alexandra Wolfe joining as reporter, previously at Portfolio.

"Our mission is to bring the smartest voices in the business to our readers," says Wolff.

Both the Adweek magazine and website have been dramatically redesigned to reflect the visual and technical innovations of the realms they cover. The look of the magazine, designed by Pentagram, emphasizes visuals that are striking and original with defining images for the optimum glossy magazine experience. The firm behind the new Adweek.com is Area 17, a cutting-edge agency devoted to this new era of people-technology-brand interaction. Poised at the forefront of the new creative revolution, Area 17 has worked with a wide range of clients, including Canal+, Coca-Cola and Nike. The visually arresting website will feature breaking news, blogs and columns.

"Adweek is a brand with enormous equity, so we did not want to change its name, but we no longer consider ourselves a typical trade publication," says Bartman. "Rather, we are a business-to-influencer brand telling the story of advertising—one of the most exciting and powerful industries—and everything it touches."

About Michael Wolff

Michael Wolff was named Editorial Director of AdweekMedia (Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek) in September 2010 to spearhead the editorial re-launch of the brand under the new ownership of Prometheus Global Media. Most recently he was a columnist for Vanity Fair, the founder of Newser.com, a two-time National Magazine Award winner, and Rupert Murdoch's biographer.  He is one of the nation's most influential writers about media, culture, and politics. His acerbic and controversial columns in Vanity Fair and before that in New York Magazine have made him what The New Republic called, "The king of New York media."  He is a regular commentator for CNBC, as well as for numerous other national news programs.

In 2008, Random House published his biography of Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, based on more than 50 hours of interview with the media mogul. In 2003, Wolff achieved international recognition for his dispatches from the Persian Gulf as the Iraq War began. He has been widely profiled in many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, as well as a cover story in The New Republic.

Before beginning his career as a columnist, he was an entrepreneur in the publishing and new media business, publishing more than a dozen books about digital culture, founding one of the first magazines about the Internet industry, NetGuide, and developing one of the early Internet search engines and portals, a story he chronicled in his bestselling book, Burn Rate. In 2007, he launched Newser, now one of the leading web and mobile news aggregators with more than 2 million users. He is the author of five books: The Man Who Owns the News (Random House), Autumn of the Moguls (HarperCollins), Burn Rate (Simon & Schuster), Where We Stand (Bantam Books), and White Kids (Simon & Schuster). He began his career on the news staff of The New York Times.

About Erica Bartman

Erica Bartman joined AdweekMedia as Publisher in March 2010.  Since her arrival, Bartman has overseen the expansion of business opportunities across Adweek's platforms: print, digital, conferences and events, and new products designed to educate and engage advertising professionals.

Previously, Bartman spent a combined 18 years at Conde Nast in leadership positions on several of the company's top brands.  Most recently from Fairchild, the business media division of Condé Nast, she was Associate Publisher of Women's Wear Daily and its Web site and oversaw the launch of WWD Beauty Biz, a monthly glossy serving the beauty category. Prior to that, Bartman was Associate Publisher of Vogue.  She served in the same role for the magazine's launch of several brand extensions including Teen Vogue, Men's Vogue and Vogue Studio, an in-house creative agency for clients. Bartman's additional experience includes the key assignments of Publisher, Allure and Advertising Director for the reposition of Mademoiselle.

About Prometheus Global Media

Prometheus Global Media engages people and marketers at the intersection of culture's most powerful forces – Music, Media and Entertainment.  This connectivity makes Prometheus a potent catalyst in influencing popular culture. Leading assets include: Music (Billboard and its related conferences and events, including The Billboard Music Awards), Entertainment (The Hollywood Reporter, Backstage, ShowEast, Cineasia, and CineEurope); and Advertising & Marketing (Adweek, Adweek Conferences and The CLIO Awards).

SOURCE Adweek