Who runs brand media: the team and roles

The minimum brand media team is three roles — editor-producer, author, distributor — but what decides the outcome isn't the head count, it's one person who owns the media as a product.

Who should run brand media?

Brand media is run by a team of three core roles: the editor-producer owns the agenda and the rhythm, the author owns the material, the distributor owns getting it to the audience. Early on one or two people can carry all three, but the zone of responsibility has to be pinned down explicitly. Running an outlet like that as a product is the media manager's job — and that's the seat Igor Selenov works from, building newsrooms around a business goal.

Brand media fails not for lack of budget, but for lack of one person who owns it as a product — not as a side gig squeezed in between everything else.

Run brand media in-house or hand it to an agency?

Running brand media in-house makes sense when the expertise already sits inside the company and an outside contractor would need a long time to absorb it. An agency speeds up the launch and takes production off your hands, but the agenda and the voice are still set by the company. The working model is a hybrid: an in-house editor-producer holds the meaning, while a partner strengthens production and distribution. That's how the newsrooms were built in projects like media for News Media Holding and "Media Founders" for business media.

Who is accountable for brand media results?

The editor-producer is accountable for brand media results — the one who keeps the link between the agenda and the metrics. You can't smear responsibility across freelancers: without an owner, the outlet loses its rhythm and its voice. How to measure that result properly is covered in how to measure brand media effectiveness; managing media as an asset is also the foundation of the "Aesthetics of Russian Media" approach.