Logo

Media Innovation: Why Hearst Has Appointed an Ad Director for Tablet Media

Sep 23, 2010  •  Post A Comment

In today’s TVWeek Media Planner newsletter, we bring you a smart, insightful piece by Nat Ives at Ad Age. Nat interviews longtime media maven Michael Clinton of Hearst about why the company had appointed an Ad Director for tablet media.

By Nat Ives
Advertisinig Age

Hearst Magazines has named an advertising manager at Town & Country to a newly created position serving as liaison between advertisers and agencies on the one hand and tablet and mobile apps from Hearst’s brands on the other.

So starting Oct. 1, Avi Zimak, who had been advertising manager at Town & Country for the past three years, will be advertising director for tablet media at Hearst.

We asked Michael Clinton, president-marketing and publishing director at Hearst Magazines, why this job had to be created, what it means for magazine publishers who want to sell their iPad ad inventory themselves, and why it didn’t go to someone with more apparent digital expertise.

Advertising Age: Why is a position like this important?

Michael Clinton: There’s a lot of interest from advertisers and agencies about what they can do on iPad and tablet editions. It’s an emerging business, obviously, so there are a lot of unknowns. So his job will be to keep the internal world and the external world up to speed on what’s happening on the advertising side of tablets.

Chris Wilkes [VP-digital editions and audience development at Hearst Magazines Digital Media] runs our tablet initiatives and our e-reader initiatives but we believe that the integration of print, digital and tablets is very exciting to advertisers as they build cross-platform buys from us. Avi will be the advertising liaison on that side of the platform.
We’re already having advertisers buy multiplatform programs that include the iPad.

Ad Age: A single advertising "liaison between the advertising community and the mobile and tablet versions of Hearst’s brands" definitely suggests that Hearst might offer tablet ad buys across titles, rather than just selling tablet edition ad space one title at a time. But don’t individual title publishers want to sell this inventory themselves?

Clinton: They will be. The individual publishers and their teams will be selling the advertising. Avi will be their internal go-to person so that they can say "What are best practices, pricing models, strategies for selling?" So he’s going to be sort of functioning in a corporate role.

Then also he’ll be working with our corporate teams — the Heart integrated-media team, the digital team — for big corporate initiatives. And in those cases, Avi will sell those.

The individual publishers and their teams will sell their own vertical apps as part of their initiatives but then we’ll have corporate initiatives as well.

Ad Age: Zimak has been advertising manager at Town & Country since July 2007, following positions at Gourmet, Details and Business 2.0. Shouldn’t someone in this position have more experience selling digital media that his resume suggests, or is the resume misleading on that score?

Clinton: He spent some time also at Ziff Davis, so he’s had some experience selling print and digital. But this is a whole different media platform. So this is not even necessarily the same as digital. There’s not a lot of experts because the platform is all of what, 12 weeks old? So we’re taking one of our talented young executives and putting him on a fast learning curve to learn about all things tablet. Everyone is sort of starting from zero on this.

Ad Age: How important is the push for magazine subscriptions on the iPad to interesting advertisers in mobile and tablet ad inventory? It seems like subscriptions will be key to building enough scale for advertisers to find tablet editions places they need to be, unless they’re making buys across networks such as iAds.

Clinton: Right now I think advertisers are looking to be part of the experience and they want to be innovators. So we are setting ourselves up to serve that need.

31 Comments

  1. Found your site today through Google. Great blog you’ve got, bookmarked.

  2. I really like the colors here on your blog. did you design this yourself or did you outsource it to a professional?

  3. I love the way you write and also the theme on your blog. Did you code this yourself or was it done by a professional? I’m very very impressed.

  4. I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks

  5. Love all the opinions expressed here! How is everyone? Love how everyone expresses whatr they feel πŸ™‚

  6. Great blog!! You should start many more. I love all the info provided. I will stay tuned πŸ™‚

  7. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. πŸ™‚

  8. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. πŸ™‚

  9. Hey how are you doing? I just wanted to stop by and say that it’s been a pleasure reading your blog. I have bookmarked your website so that I can come back & read more in the future as well. plz do keep up the quality writing

  10. After reading your blog. I am realy enjoy so much….. THanks for sharing your’s knowldge.

  11. Love all the opinions expressed here! How is everyone? Love how everyone expresses whatr they feel πŸ™‚

  12. Great blog!! You should start many more. I love all the info provided. I will stay tuned πŸ™‚

  13. Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy.

  14. Great wordpress blog here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! take care and see you soon

  15. This is good info! Where else can if ind out more?? Who runs this joint too? Keep up the good work πŸ™‚

  16. Realize that protective and restorative shoe applications cannot perform miracles. Have the common sense to know when to air on the side of practicality and not to wear your suede stiletto calf-cut boots.

  17. I love the expression. Everyone needs to express there own opinion and feel free to hear others. Keep it up πŸ™‚

  18. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. πŸ™‚

  19. Way to focus and straight to your point, i love it. Keep up the work people. Dont let anyone stop us bloggers.

  20. Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy.

  21. Amazing freakin blog here. I almost cried while reading it!

  22. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. πŸ™‚

  23. I am extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days.. πŸ™‚

  24. I have been appearing forever to find something like this! Great joke and I must enounce , it works big . Tiffanys necklace

  25. Simply saying thanks won’t just be enough, for the wonderful readability in your documentation. I will instantly grab your rss feed to remain knowledgeable of any updates. Admirable work and far success in your online business endeavors!

  26. Outstanding weblog, thanks for writing th is post

  27. The Zune concentrates on being a Portable Media Player. Not a web browser. Not a game machine. Maybe in the future it’ll do even better in those areas, but for now it’s a fantastic way to organize and listen to your music and videos, and is without peer in that regard. The iPod’s strengths are its web browsing and apps. If those sound more compelling, perhaps it is your best choice.

  28. Love the blog here. Nice colors. I am definitely staying tuned to this one. Hope to see more.

  29. Great l ist. is there any plans for the greatest and worst identities with the previous decade? I assume it could be beneficial to try and do, considering that we could have comments on designs that came out prior to th is web site ex isted.

  30. Excellent weblog, thanks for writing th is submit

  31. What i do not realize is actually how you are not really much more well-liked than you might be now. You are so intelligent. You realize therefore considerably relating to this subject, made me personally consider it from numerous varied angles. Its like men and women aren’t fascinated unless it is one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs great. Always maintain it up!

    https://www.export.org.au/Redirect.aspx?destination=https://goo.gl/maps/XZYan2rhLPjz1dyZA

Leave a Reply to Link Building Cancel Reply

Email (will not be published)