Brand building around journalists not new at Forbes

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes how the business magazine’s focus on building brands around its writers is actually an old strategy.

Dvorkin writes, “Our first writer-turned-brand came from Hearst, the big newspaper chain. He was a leading business columnist, author and already a minor celebrity in his own right — he dubbed himself ‘The Humanizer of Business.’ He quickly realized he had more stories and copy in him than his newspaper column had room for.

“So, he went to his employer, seeking its blessing and perhaps even backing for a larger idea — he wanted to start a magazine. His boss endorsed it, but disliked the proposed title and suggested the columnist’s real name would be a better one. That way, his boss told him, the reporter’s newspaper column would promote the magazine and the magazine would promote the newspaper column.

“The journalist: B.C. Forbes, the founder of our company. His boss at Hearst: none other than William Randolph himself, who loved collecting branded columnists, and in retrospect, a godfather of sorts to today’s digital marketing ‘geniuses.’

“FORBES magazine (B.C. wanted to call it Doers and Doings) went on to be a great success in the Roaring 20s. In 1928, Hearst offered B.C. $1 million for it. B.C. turned him down, a decision he likely questioned during the Great Depression, when the magazine nearly failed and his livelihood was dependent on the newspaper column, which he continued to write through World War II.”

Read more here.