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Higher-ups at the New York-based publisher are said to have earmarked this week for the long-rumored consolidation of the business side of the company. Insiders pointed to three big meetings that will take place at the end of January as reason for the timing. Employees will gather on Jan. 31 for an all-staff meeting, following which Condé Nast International executives will have their meeting at the New York headquarters. A business staff meeting led by chief business officer and president of revenue Jim Norton will come after that.

Norton, who is the architect of the business consolidation, was brought in late last year from AOL to slash costs and evolve the company’s digital business.

The consolidation moves are believed to include a reduction of publishers and the promotion of key executives to the roles of chief marketing officer and chief revenue officer. (The word “publisher” is also expected to be replaced by the title of general manager and chief revenue officer in order to project an image of being less reliant on print even though the majority of Condé’s revenue continues to be derived from it.)

Although it is still uncertain which publishers — or should we say “general manager and chief revenue officer?” — will remain in place, there appears to be consensus that Vanity Fair’s Chris Mitchell, Vogue’s Susan Plagemann and GQ’s Howard Mittman are part of a core team that will keep their current roles. (Mittman is rumored to be adding Golf Digest to his list of titles, as chief revenue officer Pete Hunsinger has left the company for a new gig.)

The front-runner for chief marketing officer is Pam Drucker Mann, the chief revenue officer and publisher of the Food Innovation Group, which includes Bon Appétit and Epicurious, sources said.

Lisa Valentino, the chief revenue officer of Condé Nast Entertainment and senior vice president of network sales for Condé, is expected by sources to be getting the title of chief revenue officer for the entire company. Meanwhile, Josh Stinchcomb, the senior vice president and managing director of 23 Stories, is likely to get an expanded role. The exact nature of that role could not be learned.

Of course, with any consolidation comes layoffs. There already has been a considerable amount of cutting on the editorial side, as Condé Nast consolidated its creative directors, copy and photo editors. Restructuring on the publishers’ side naturally puts into question certain publications and their business leaders. It is rumored the firm is looking at further consolidating Glamour, Allure and Brides, for instance, and that W Magazine is expected to be rolled up into Vogue’s business side. But sources have indicated that such changes do not necessarily mean that publishers of the aforementioned titles would exit the company, as some would likely be offered new roles. Still, a few publishers will be let go in the shakeup, WWD has learned. And, newly promoted leaders will then begin accessing their teams and making their own adjustments.

While Condé will likely — and justifiably — explain that all these changes stem from declining print revenues and the need to restructure the group to become more digitally oriented, there may be an even broader reason down the line.

Several well-placed sources have speculated that Norton could be helping to prep the company for an eventual sale by its owners, the Newhouse family. Condé Nast parent company Advance did not respond to requests for comment on the sale rumors.

Insiders told WWD that Condé has in the past held talks about a potential sale with selective companies. It could not be learned how serious those discussions were or whether they were merely theoretical — or whether they are ongoing.

Should the Newhouses decide to sell what is considered the crown jewel in their Advance empire, sources said the most likely suitor would be longtime rival, and also family-owned, Hearst. They mused that Hearst would be able to consolidate the fashion and beauty advertising market while getting into new areas.

All agreed, though, that a sale is not imminent.

“There’s no truth to this,” a Hearst Magazines spokeswoman said of Condé as a potential acquisition target.

Sources whispered that other possible suitors that have been speculated about at various points have included Apple and Google. But those rumors may be conflated by the fact that the publisher has inked deals with both companies. Apple, which is working with Condé Nast Entertainment, did not return requests seeking comment. Google, on the other hand, provided a pun-laden “no comment” that name-dropped several Condé Nast-owned titles.

“You seem Wired into the latest chatter. We got some Backchannel from a New Yorker that this gossip was en Vogue. When your question came in and we Reddit, it made us quite Epicurious because your stories have some Allure. But Self-ishly we don’t comment on rumors (Glamour-ous or otherwise). Bon Appétit!,” the spokesperson offered.

Maybe they Googled how to write a witty response.

Luxury Brands Struggle to Steer Iranians Away From Knockoffs

As country opens up, high-end retailers look to change habits of customers for whom fake fashion was the only option under sanctions regime

Iranians love high fashion, but luxury companies planning to tap Persian appetite for designer clothes and bags are facing stiff competition from their very own brands—albeit fake ones.

In the forked walkways of Tehran’s central bazaar, many shops offer convincing copies of Gucci belts and Cartier handbags. One young vendor sells a fake Louis Vuitton belt made in Turkey for about $8; the authentic product retails for around $400. “I have the box if you want to wrap it as a gift,” he offers as a deal-clincher.

Cut off from the global economy by international sanctions over the past decade, Iran’s importers have had a tough time bringing in real European goods that the growing middle class wants to buy. Fakes—many high-quality—have been meeting that demand.

Now that most sanctions on Iran have been removed with the country’s nuclear deal, this ecosystem of knockoffs is confounding genuine luxury retailers, slowing their entry into a promising new market.

Despite Iran’s ultraconservative leadership and official aversion for Western values, industry analysts see the youthful, oil-rich country of 80 million as an exciting prospect for retailers of the world’s most famous brands. Per capita consumer spending in Tehran’s urban core averaged $4,700 last year, the highest level in the Middle East, according to the London-based Planet Retail.

Roberto Cavalli opened a boutique in Tehran’s wealthy Zaferaniyeh neighborhood last February, and Versace followed in April, both in partnership with Iranian businessman Farshid Jamali.

“Sales have been satisfactory, but lower than what we expected,” Mr. Jamali said.

The reason, he said, was that many wealthy Iranians aren’t well informed about the change in the retail landscape and still assume luxury goods in local boutiques are convincing fake versions of the Western brands they profess to be.

There are no statistics on the market for fake fashion in Iran. While making and selling knockoffs is technically illegal, they are sold openly, with little sign of government oversight.

“In Iran it’s all fake,” said Mehrnaz, a Tehran-based businesswoman and luxury shopper who asked not to be identified by her full name. “There are no licenses, even for those who have the logos and claim to be original.”

Consumer doubt has been reinforced by players like Zilan, a company that has imported clothes made by Zara and other brands under Spain’s Inditex SA since 2006. Its stores look like official Zara outlets, according to its website. Zilan’s existence means Zara would face competition with unlicensed, rogue versions of its own stores if it entered Iran.

An Inditex spokeswoman said Zara had no stores in Iran, and declined to comment further. Zilan couldn’t be reached for comment. Zilan is using the Zara brand and selling Zara clothes, but there is no relationship between the companies.

While Iran has well-functioning trademark laws, Inditex would have to register its Zara brand and go to court to shut Zilan down, according to Sadegh Shamshiri, an intellectual property lawyer at Hengam Legal Services in Tehran. That process would take at least a few months, Mr. Shamshiri said.

Iranian consumers have grown used to a market littered with fake goods, and in some cases prefer them to the real thing because of their affordability and availability. One Tehran-based importer of fakes from China, who would only identify herself as Forouz for fear of legal liability, said interest in counterfeit goods began to pick up a year or two ago as upwardly mobile Iranians grew more brand-conscious.

“My Gucci sandals sold out, and I am now going to China to buy more,” said Forouz, who advertises using the Instagram handle mezon.blanche. “Women love them. I have customers who drive Toyota Prados, own holiday villas in northern Iran, but they don’t pay for the original.”

Even if the Iranian government tackled the impostor problem, foreign luxury brands still face the challenge of changing consumer habits.

“Right now, our goods are 40% less expensive than the same in Dubai, but there is a perception here that it’s expensive anyway,” said Mr. Jamali, the Iranian businessman backing the Roberto Cavalli and Versace boutiques in Tehran.

Luxury brands learned from setting up shop in China in the early 1990s that being a pioneer in a market with large potential can pay dividends, even if the business isn’t an immediate success, said Armando Branchini, the vice chairman of the Milan-based Fondazione Altagamma, a foundation that represents Italian luxury brands. It took until the early 2000s, when China joined the World Trade Organization, for Italian luxury brands to begin reaping their rewards there, he said.

“The pioneers benefited years later from having their reputation established much better than the second followers,” Mr. Branchini said.

By the time Iran’s market makes a similar transformation, however, Sadra Hosseini thinks e-commerce will be a powerful competitor to traditional luxury outlets.

Mr. Hosseini co-founded The Luxe London, a U.K.-based startup that has been selling luxury goods to Iranians directly from Europe, eliminating middlemen and leaving little doubt about the authenticity of products.

The Luxe London has done hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of sales in the past year and a half, he said, a sign that retailers may have online solutions to address the lack of confidence in locally available luxury goods.

“There’s an Iranian mentality that if it’s made in Iran it’s crap,” he said. “That will persist in the future.”

Link : http://bit.ly/2jTw7Ds

“I’ve noticed the more reactive I feel, the more miserable I am,” Ferriss said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. “The worse I treat myself, the worse I treat other people. Social media is just jet fuel for reactivity.”

If that sounds like you, he says, think about taking a social media fast and spending the first hour of your day not looking at your phone. Ferriss doesn’t use Facebook at all “for personal purposes,” and has been happier since he mostly unplugged from Twitter as well.

“Even people who are usually optimistic and proposing solutions, instead of bitching about problems, are so negative right now,” he said. “There are a lot of understandable reasons for it, but it’s spun out of control and I find it contagious.”

Talking to Swisher two weeks ago, he said January is the perfect time to plan time for getting off the grid throughout the year. Later this year, Ferriss and a friend are planning to journey into the Nevada desert with no food, and will force themselves to “figure it out.”

“I very strongly believe that voluntary suffering is underrated,” he said. “If there are two sides of the scale, one is hedonism and one is suffering, and you’re constantly piling on hedonism, you adapt to that very quickly.”

“This hedonic treadmill, we see it all the time in Silicon Valley,” he added. “I have met people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars who are utterly miserable because their frenemy from some other startup has a bigger jet, and it eats them. it just kills them.”

In the Big Brother reality television show, contestants often overreact to the most minor provocations. John de Mol, the creator of the format, could be accused of something similar. On Monday, the Dutch billionaire said he would bid for Telegraaf Media Groep, largest publisher in the Netherlands.

His €5.90 a share cash bid easily trumps a €5.25 offer from Mediahuis, a privately owned Belgian conglomerate that already owns 41 per cent of TMG. The stand-off has echoes of the scrap over RCS Mediagroup in Italy last year. That pitted an industry rival, Cairo Communications, against a group of financial investors. Cairo won.

RCS came with a trophy asset, Corriere della Sera, plus a notable position in sports newspapers. TMG likewise brings de Telegraaf, Holland’s leading daily, and an interesting line in puzzle magazines. It prints 86m of these each year, and they are the only major part of the business where revenues have grown. But they are not big enough to offset the drop in newspaper advertising, which fell more than a fifth in the half-year to June 2016. There is no equivalent of the online classifieds businesses that have helped Germany’s Axel Springer or Norway’s Schibsted weather the decline of print.

Buying TMG would give Mediahuis a 40 per cent market share in the Netherlands. Like Cairo, it would reap cost savings too. For Mr de Mol, who has amassed a 20 per cent stake, the benefits are less clear. His company, Talpa, has some overlap with TMG via its participation in a radio venture, but Talpa already controls that entity. His bid appears to be more about keeping TMG in Dutch hands, a sensitive issue given that Belgian groups already control rival papers Algemeen Dagblad and de Volkskrant.

Before the bids, TMG’s stock price was €3.50, having fallen from a 2013 peak of more than €10 in virtually a straight line. Both bidders have deep pockets. Other shareholders will be hoping this series runs for a while yet.

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