GQ has named Alice McKown and Brendan Monaghan as new Associate Publishers. McKown was most recently with Condé Nast Traveler and Monaghan was most recently GQ’s Advertising Director.

Both are veterans of Condé Nast. McKown has worked at The New Yorker and Wired, while Monaghan has been with GQ since 2004.

It’s a baffling recent development to receive daily press announcements from publishers that are “proudly introducing” a new digital ad structure or employee. We’ve seen the Meredith Corporation promote Andy Sareyan to “brand officer…in charge of online platforms“, Josh Stinchcomb and Alice McKown take over Conde Nast‘s new online advertising structure, and Chicago Tribune journalists writing about their own publisher’s new cross-platform ad sales group.

Today, The Atlantic joins the ranks of its print-and-web contemporaries with its hiring of Breda O’Reilly as digital ad manager, “during a period of vigorous online expansion and innovation.”

Why is this news? Traditionally, when print publications hire someone to oversee a sales force, there’s no press release, no giant blurb sent out to other publications. And when blogs like Gawker or TMZ hire ad people, there is likewise little hooplah. It’s only when print publishers (which have had such a hard time transitioning between the mega bucks of print ads and the scarce terrain of online media buyers) find someone to fill their digital ad sales spot that it’s cause for celebration. Because it proves that The Atlantic (or Conde Nast, or Meredith, etc.) has finally calculated how to turn their pageviews into cash.

We have to give credit to The Atlantic though for at least trying something new with their online content: When talking to publisher Jay Lauf two weeks ago on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu, he spoke about The Atlantic Wire and the pitch to advertisers of intellectual readers as a specific marketing niche.

Related: The Atlantic Names Breda O’Reilly Digital Ad Manager

Condé Nast has been navigating a dark and stormy terrain in the past several weeks with the closing of four magazines, the layoffs of hundreds of employees, and no end in sight for the once-venerable Si Newhouse-led powerhouse.

But in between all the bad news, the company’s digital arm, Condé Nast Digital, has been working to organizes its magazines’ Web sites into a cohesive structure. Today’s announcement of Condé Digital’s ad sales overhaul into five different brands proves that the company is finally in the works to revamp their digital presence.

“Under the new sales structure, three advertising directors who are responsible for overseeing revenue for specific brands will report to the newly named publisher, Josh Stinchcomb,” the company said. “Each of Condé Nast Digital’s 26 online brands will now fall into one of the five categories, which are fashion and beauty; food, well-being and travel; bridal; technology; and culture and thought leader. In addition, Alice McKown has been named executive director of marketing, enabling marketing to provide better service to the same five categories.”

Full press release after the jump.

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