ITV Announces New-Media Sales Appointments
The newly merged ITV Sales operation has announced the appointment of Peter Birch and Colin Ramsay to the respective roles of head of interactive sales and head of online sales with immediate effect.
The appointments come as ITV Sales launches a major charm offensive to improve its relationship with advertisers, in the form of an interactive CD-Rom setting out the company’s plans for the coming year.
It is understood that Birch beat off competition from Andrea Lippet, controller of interactive sales at Granada, to take the newly created role of head of interactive sales following a restructure headed by the recently appointed sales director, Gary Digby.
Meanwhile, Ramsay is thought to have beaten his boss, John Doyle, director of online and interactive sales at Granada Enterprises to the post of ITV’s head of online sales. Reports suggest Doyle may now leave the company.
Birch and Ramsay will now work to decide on the structures of their respective departments. Digby said: “I am delighted to announce these two roles reporting directly to me. Both are significant growth areas in ITV Sales’ portfolio of business.”
ITV Sales has also announced the appointment of Andy Thompson to the position of senior sponsorship and branded content manager. Thompson was previously head of sponsorship at Carlton Communications.
Graham Duff, managing director, of ITV Sales, is this week attempting to win over advertisers and agencies with a CD-Rom outlining the organisation’s plans to be more customer-centric, more coherent and more pro-active during 2004.
Announcing his future strategy, Duff said: “Since the creation of ITV Sales there has been much industry comment and very little of it has been 100% positive. As a former customer of ITV, I can understand where many of the concerns come from. However, I have terrific ambition for ITV Sales and I hope that over the coming months that ambition will be tangible to our customers.”
Duff promised advertisers that ITV Sales would be more closely aligned to its core product, the programmes. He also said the organisation would be at the forefront of marketing the television medium to customers (see Channel 4 Leads Drive To Promote Television Advertising).
The move follows the recent appointment of former RAB managing director, Justin Sampson, to take up the newly created role of director of customer relationship management. Sampson will work to ensure that the customer is put at the heart of all aspects of the sales operation from the client facing sales team and business-to-business arm to the trade marketing division (see ITV Poaches RAB’s Sampson To Boost Advertiser Relations).
ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com
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