Darren Guy, associate director at Zenith Media, is the 1995 Regional
Press Personality of the Year.
The 33-year-old is a fervent believer in the strength of the regional
press as an effective local medium. He brings energy, commitment and
innovation to his role as one of the country’s leading regional press
planners.
Born in Blackpool, Guy trained as a teacher and taught in Oxford before
switching to a career in media.
He has an exhaustive knowledge of the medium he buys - on behalf of
clients such as the COI,BT and Burger King, to name but a few - having
first worked in the press as a classified sales executive on Robert
Maxwell’s London Daily News. As marketing manager at United Provincial
Newspapers, he also worked on the launch of the Word, a regional daily
sales package. It was at UPN that he gained his exceptional knowledge of
the industry and of its marketing systems.
Within months of being promoted to sales development manager at UPN, he
was poached by Zenith.
Well liked and respected by colleagues, clients and media owners, Guy
has long lobbied for regional and local newspapers to unite in a single
voice. He is determined and direct, with strong views on how the
industry should market itself.
A major supporter of JICREG as a sales and planning tool, he also speaks
highly of regional packages and sales initiatives and clearly wants the
best marketing solutions for his clients.
In Darren Guy the regional press has a staunch friend. If at times his
views have been outspoken, they have always been honest. ‘The future of
regional press lies firmly in its own hands,’ he has often said.
The calm, quietly spoken, psychology graduate with a passion for rock
music, is a very deserving recipient of the Newspaper Society’s second
Personality of the Year REGI Award.
