An old article, but potentially useful in discussions of information creation as a process.
John Cook writes:
Yesterday, Men’s Health editor David Zinczenko got caught cutting and pasting old cover lines onto the new issue of his magazine. Today, he explained that it was a deliberate “overall branding strategy.” Boy, was he right.
It goes far beyond the similarities between the December 2007 and December 2009 covers that was discovered yesterday. Have a look at the Men's Healthcover archive and you'll find that Zinczenko has been recycling covers since 2004. The magazine only has about four cover archetypes, which usually share the same copy ("Get Back in Shape" is always paired with "30 Red-Hot Sex Secrets," for instance), and the same stupid numerical eye candy. And Zinczenko seems to have keyed into the seasonal desires of his readers—the January/February covers, for instance, were virtually identical in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
There are in fact, just four basic templates for a Men's Health cover. Since 2007,Men's Health has led with "Flat-Belly Foods," "Get Back Into Shape," and "Lose Your Gut" at least twice a year, and a "Six-Pack Abs" at least once a year since 2005.
