PR guy: Portfolio is dead on arrival

Steve Cody, managing partner and co-founder of Peppercom, one of the nation’s largest independent public relations firms, writes on his RepMan blog that the new business magazine Conde Nast Portfolio is in trouble from the start, based on his experience in doing PR for other new business-related magazines.

Cody wrote, “Truth be told, I haven’t spent time reading all 300 pages, but I can assure Conde Nast that there’s at least one business reader who can’t and won’t attempt to familiarize himself with Portfolio. And, my gut tells me I’ll be the norm in this case, not the exception.

“Having provided publicity support for at least four failed magazines I can think of (Shock, Individual Investor, Financial World and Tele.com), I know that content alone isn’t enough to break through in a crowded space. To succeed, Portfolio would have to be dramatically different from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune and countless others. Instead, it seems from reviews that the text is ‘more of the same.’

“As I’ve said in the past, all the publicity and marketing in the world can’t fix a broken model. And, in my mind, Portfolio is dead on arrival. The ‘body’ may linger for a while, but I wouldn’t shift any money in my own portfolio betting on its success.”

Read more here.