• by Larry Dobrow , May 20, 2003

After nearly three years of relative silence, Fortune magazine has unveiled a new ad campaign designed to celebrate the venerable title's editorial vision. The campaign, predominantly comprised of print ads in Time Inc. properties but also tapping marketing trade pubs and New York City telephone kiosks, debuts on Monday.

At a press gathering in New York yesterday, the magazine formally unveiled its "Every FORTUNE Tells the Story" tagline and the new ads. (Ironically, despite Fortune's attempts to keep the campaign hush-hush, one of the ads appeared in Time Inc. sibling Entertainment Weekly last week due to a production snafu).

Fortune group publisher Mike Federle noted that the campaign is designed to showcase the mag's distinct editorial voice, rather than hype its competitive position in the ever-turbulent world of business pubs. "I prefer to talk about what this campaign is not," he said. "We could have done 'we're the best [-selling business magazine] on the newsstand and the most profitable business book out there.' But the campaign goes directly at what we do best: write great editorial."

The ads juxtapose pictures from recent Fortune features on Bill Gates, Sen. John McCain, the Olsen Twins and others with what a company press release dubs "seemingly incongruous one-word headlines." Copy from each of the stories is directly quoted in a smaller font at the bottom of the ads, along with the new tagline.

"[Fortune is] a tough magazine to describe in a sound bite," quipped managing editor Rik Kirkland. "This [campaign] truly reflects what we're trying to do on the editorial side... We make most of our money from selling ads, so it's nice to see us eating some of our own cooking."

The campaign arrives at a time when Fortune, like most business titles, is grappling for ad dollars as the economy continues to reel. Recent Publishing Information Bureau statistics indicate that, through April, the title is down nearly 15% in ad pages and 13% in ad revenue against the same period last year. Then again, Fortune experienced similar percentage declines during 2002 and still posted one the best overall years in its nearly 75-year history. Of the three preeminent U.S. business titles, only Forbes is up in ad pages during 2003; both Forbes and BusinessWeek are down in revenue (in Forbes' case, a mere 0.06%).

Federle said that the campaign will be extended to include Fortune's most recent editorial successes, and that its effectiveness will be ultimately be gauged by the marketplace's reaction to it. While the ads were developed by a Time Inc. in-house creative team, Federle went out of his way to note that Mullen remains Fortune's agency of record.