Condé CEO “Convinced That the Digital Business Will Grow Exponentially”

Ad Age reports Conde Nast is taking “a new swing at this digital thing.” And it starts by eliminating the 13-year-old CondeNet.

Why now? It’s the economy, says the CEO.

“This economic experience that we are going through has sobered us up considerably,” said President & CEO Charles Townsend. “To get back to double-digit growth, we have to put our digital assets to work hard. I am hoping that the print business will recover to double-digit growth, but I am convinced that the digital business will grow exponentially.”

AdAge reports, only about 3% of Conde Nast’s 2008 ad revenue came from digital, “a proportion topped by nearly every rival, public or private.”

Conde Nast Digital, as it is now known, will promote its 27 online brands’ 52 million monthly visitors — a consolidation that has some on Madison Ave. sold. “They’re actually, of all the publishing companies, getting the least amount of digital money from us,” one exec tells AdAge. “They don’t really push it in meetings in the way that publishers do at other publishers.”

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