Independent Revamps Sales Team With Senior Appointments
The Independent has announced a raft of senior appointments to its sales team in a move that underlines the newspaper’s commitment to ‘radically changing’ its sales strategy.
The newspaper has appointed former client director at IPC Media, Stuart Robertson, as client business development manager and has poached Hannah Peace from The Guardian to become assistant group head.
Fiona Cuff joins the company from parenting magazine Junior to become account manager and Toby Morris has been promoted internally to a newly created role selling advertising space exclusively to agency planners.
The latest appointments follow hot on the heels of Simon Cooke and Jo Redfern’s internal promotions to advertisement directors across display and classified respectively as The Independent develops a strategy of ‘renewed focus’ on its advertising department.
Commenting on the new appointments, Terry Grote, managing director of The Independent, said: “We are building a first class department made up of talented individuals who will do more than just fill space; instead, they will work closely with clients to develop genuine commercial solutions.”
The Independent has performed well recently and the latest ABC results show it adding an impressive 15.7% to its circulation year on year in the six months to June 2004. The paper now commands a circulation of almost 258,000 and growth shows no signs of slowing in the coming months.
The Independent‘s success has been attributed mainly to its recent switch to the popular tabloid format. However, its main quality rival, The Times, has seen a less impressive performance, with circulation rising by just 1% in the same period to 657,000, despite launching its own compact version at the end of last year.
Elsewhere, Independent News & Media, publisher of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, has announced strong revenue growth across all major markets for the first half of 2004, with like for like advertising revenues up over 6% in year on year analysis (see INM Delivers Strong Growth In First Half Of 2004).
Independent: 020 7005 2000 www.independent.co.uk
Recent Newspaper Stories from NewsLine Compact Times Proves Successful In Attracting New Readers ABC National Newspaper Round-Up May 2004 Media Planners Welcome Independent’s Tabloid Move
Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive