Editing

Advertising Age | The Industry Standard | Book/manuscript editing

Advertising Age is a weekly trade magazine aimed at people who work in marketing, advertising and media. Launched more than 70 years ago, it's often called "the bible of the ad industry." It also was one of the first publications to recognize the importance of electronic communications and devote a regular weekly news section to interactive marketing.

I can't take credit for creating the Interactive Media & Marketing section back in 1993--that honor goes to Valerie Mackie, who was then Ad Age's managing editor. But I was the first associate editor, and served as its editor from 1996 to 1997.

Key Responsibilities

• Edited weekly magazine section--assigned and edited articles, wrote headlines and captions. Managed layout and production.
• Managed a staff of four, plus several freelancers. Worked regularly with Ad Age beat reporters to cajole them into writing for the section.
• As lead beat reporter on the interactive marketing beat, I wrote 1 to 3 articles per week.
• Planned and managed four special reports per year. The reports, totaling anywhere from 24 to 48 pages, focused on interactive agencies, local Internet media, interactive business leaders and more.
• I gave a lot of speeches, to interactive marketing conferences, business school students, Yellow Pages publishers, magazine ad reps and more.
• I was part of the team that launched Net Marketing, a regular supplement to Advertising Age's Business Marketing. I helped to create the Web Price Index, an ongoing survey measuring what it costs to create a Web site and its various components.

Other Stuff

• I was promoted to editor of the section at the ripe old age of 27.
• I edited a handbook for interactive marketing for NBC.
• Awards: 1997 Jesse Neal Award and Certificate of Merit for Net Marketing work; 1994 Crain Communications Editorial Excellence Award, for an article about Time Warner's failed attempt to sell pricey ad packages for its Full Service Network.