Trinity Mirror removes 'traditional' ad sales silos and unites marketing and branded content divisions under Zoe Harris
Trinity Mirror doesn’t want another ad sales executive running its branded content division and is instead appointing marketing director Zoe Harris head of both marketing and branded content, uniting the two.
Zoe Harris
Mark Field, the former director of Invention, the publisher’s branded content arm, left last month to join News UK after 11 years at the publisher.
The publisher said Field’s departure was a “good opportunity” for it to move away from the traditional ad sales position, which is “not right for where Invention and content marketing is going”.
Instead the marketing department will become part of Trinity Mirror Solutions, the ad sales operation which Invention falls into, as the publisher takes a more holistic view to its advertising sell.
A spokesperson said: “It makes a lot more sense to have somebody like Zoe who is super creative, brand-focused, audience-focused looking after the Invention side of the business and being able to look through a marketeers eyes on it all. It’s taking what we do in our marketing department for our brand and leveraging that for other brands.”
The united Solutions plans to make more use of the publisher’s analytics insight to improve its sell to advertisers, but a spokesperson admitted “we don’t know yet how all the little bits will work”. The decision to merge the divisions was made just a few days ago and is still in early stages of planning.
James Wildman, the chief revenue officer who heads Trinity Mirror Solutions, said: "We have consciously steered away from replacing Mark with a like-for-like sales person, but instead have taken the opportunity to really break the mould and shape a completely new approach.
"Putting marketing at the centre of the way we do things and bringing that brand, audience and message focus to our Invention offering is unlike anything our competitors are doing and brings a new level of intelligence and effectiveness to what we do.
"This underpins our increasingly insight-led sell and will better scale our strong creative resources for the benefit of our customers."
Harris said: "Since the Invention team was created, branded content has continued to evolve and we need to make sure we are staying one step ahead. We’re therefore taking the opportunity to rethink our approach and structure and it makes sense to bring our creative talent together.
"We are facing an unprecedented set of challenges and opportunities in the media industry at the present time and this will help us make the most of the internal skills and knowledge we have to further broaden our impact and continue to raise the bar."