Emap Consumer is hunting for a new director to work out how best to
sell across all the company’s consumer operations: Emap On-Air, Elan,
Metro, Active and Online.
Although the role could effectively lead to a group sell, Emap Consumer
commercial director Hamish Scott was keen to downplay this description
of the new role. ’Group sell sounds like you’re talking ’pile it high,
sell it cheap’,’ he explained. ’We have never done that and we never
will.
This is a project to look at how we can service agencies and clients
better across all the different media we have,’ he said.
’Someone has to be appointed and then we will see how we will move
forward,’ he added.
He said there were a few internal candidates but it is understood the
company has been looking outside as well.
A handful of media bosses are believed to be on a list of
desirables.
Scott said the specific job title had not been decided either, and would
depend largely on what kind of person Emap selected for the post. The
ideal person would have the ability to think across all media, he
said.
’We are uniquely positioned to offer clients multi-media solutions.
No-one else has television, radio, magazines, below-the-line and 52
websites. People are knocking on our door every day.’
For the past year Emap has examined this issue through a forum of
commercial directors from each division. One of Emap’s largest
cross-media campaigns was a Whitbread drive last year for Stella Artois,
which comprised promotions across radio stations and magazines.
Emap is due to announce its interim results today. Analysts are
predicting pre-tax profits of between pounds 81 million and pounds 86
million for the six months ending 30 September.
