ESI Media creates trade marketing and insight role to build intelligence around its commercial offer
In a move to build greater intelligence around its commercial proposition, ESI Media has hired its first director of trade marketing and insight with a remit to expand its "growth" brands through major commercial partnerships.
ESI Media bolsters its B2B marketing and insight with new hire
Katie Ingram, formerly strategy and planning director at outdoor advertising agency Outsmart, will take up the role with immediate effect. She reports to Dan Locke, chief agency strategy officer at ESI Media, and the brains behind its 2016 event House of ESI, a weeklong trade event that flouted the publisher’s revamped proposition to prospective agencies and advertisers.
In the new role, Ingram will devise similar events aimed at building partnerships with agencies and clients across ESI Media portfolio of brands, which includes The Independent, the London Evening Standard, indy100 and ES Magazine.
To make its sell more attractive to prospective clients, Ingram has been tasked with extending ESI’s audience insight, likely by refining audience segments. Publishers are cottoning on to the fact that there is a huge amount of value in their first-party audience data, which when decoupled can be sold as segments to advertisers and agencies, opening up opportunities to monetise beyond their own inventory.
The Guardian has been testing this since October last year, taking the same insight it uses to tailor its advertising on site from 200 billion data events each month, to drive value to its advertisers. Ingram’s role will likely see similar moves from ESI Media to build out its data offering.
Last year, ESI launched a branded content arm, Story Studio, to help maintain the early growth behind its renewed focus on growing its digital footprint in the absence of a paywall around the sites of either the Independent or Evening Standard.
Locke said: “Katie’s appointment brings together our trade marketing and insight into a central role, working across the business on our brands The Independent, the London Evening Standard, indy100 and ES Magazine. Taking the innovative work that’s being done within the business and telling those stories to commercial partners is crucial, so Katie will be leading on that, as well as further extending on our insight expertise to support our ever-evolving audience understanding.
"This will help in our drive to continue our conversations with clients and agencies about our commercial proposition, with a real focus on growth areas of our business. Bringing in new talent is key to building on success we’ve already had with roll outs such as the House of ESI and the evolution of divisions such as custom content and events."
Ingram added: “This is an exciting time to be joining ESI and I’m really looking forward to working with the growing Independent digital brand and London Powerhouse brand the Evening Standard. It’s a powerful media portfolio and commercial offering, with many exciting opportunities for clients and agencies. I’m going to enjoy reflecting this innovation in our trade marketing and insight strategy.”