Haymarket invents a new job category as PR Week’s Danny Rogers becomes ‘brand editor’ of Campaign

‘Strewth.

I don’t think even the Americans, who have all sorts of editors populating their interminable mastheads, have ‘brand editors.’

But that’s what former PR Week editor Rogers (left) – who is also editor in chief of the Brand Republic group, how many titles can a man have? – is becoming. He is replacing long-serving Campaign editor Claire Beale who is becoming – brand editor of Haymarket’s Marketing.

Rogers says: “Campaign is a strong and iconic brand. I look forward to working with this incredibly talented team to make the editorial content more digital, integrated and engaging during 2013.”

Danny missed a PR trick here, he should have said even more…

In other Haymarket moves Arif Durrani, who might have fancied his chances of being a brand editor himself, becomes head of media (another new title) while Brand Republic’s media reporter Maisie McCabe become news editor (not brand news editor – that would have been good) of Campaign.

Haymarket says: “The publishing division is replacing the traditional editor role with the new position of brand editor to reflect the multi-channel duties that now accompany the role.”

If I were toiling in Hammersmith I’d wonder if this brand editor/digital stuff was a prelude to canning the print edition of Campaign.

A Haymarket high-up (since departed) told me years ago that Campaign wouldn’t last more than a year or so in print and it’s still there, despite a much longer recession than anyone expected. It hasn’t made serious money (by its previous standards anyway) since Marketing Week muscled onto the scene decades ago and hoovered up all the classified advertising (that’s now gone online too, of course).

Anyway Rogers, who has done a good job of building the PR Week brand (in part by treating it as a serious industry, something many of us still find difficult) will no doubt do equally well at Campaign.

Claire Beale (left, in moody pose), now off to Marketing, has been a fine Campaign editor – maintaining the fiction that it’s still the epicentre of the advertising business with some panache.