Quebecor Media Sales has restructured its national sales team along key advertising sectors, a move it says will enable it to better address client needs and maximize revenue potential.
The media company’s national sales team will now operate along five verticals: automotive, consumer products, retail, telecommunications and financial services, and entertainment and recreation.
“Being engaged with specific industry concerns will enable us to ensure that these advertisers and their agencies achieve their business goals,” said Donald Lizotte, executive vice-president, Quebec Media Sales and VP of sales and marketing for TVA Group.
Lizotte said the increasing complexity of advertisers’ businesses has made it difficult to have sales staff moving between industry sectors and be well versed on client concerns and objectives in each.
“We’re better equipped to ensure the accuracy of the target audience they’re aiming for, and providing creative media that responds to their specific challenges,” he added. “We want to have a long-term relationship with our clients, and by focusing on their objectives I’m convinced that in the long run we’ll be better equipped and have a very strong competitive advantage.”
Quebecor Media Sales had previously been structured along agency and platform-specific lines, but Lizotte said that structure made it difficult to address specific client requests.
“Now when we talk to a brief from agencies and advertisers, having someone that understands their business and our entire media portfolio, we’ll have a better fit in regards to what platform responds to their needs and targets,” he said. “The main focus is to ensure that our customer service is above and beyond anything in the market.”
Lizotte said there would be a learning curve for Quebecor’s sales staff, but said the group has key people that understand the various sectors. “We have a good pool of talented people that can bring focus to our customers and go beyond what we were doing in the past,” he said.
Four jobs have been eliminated as a result of the re-organization, but Lizotte stressed that it is not a cost-cutting exercise for Quebecor. He said that the company is currently looking to add seven sales staff, including a sales director for each of the five industry sectors; a senior director responsible for the telecommunications and financial services and entertainment and recreation categories, and another senior director, solutions media responsible for negotiating annual agreements with agencies.
Caroline Gagnon, former director, national sales, convergent solutions, has been appointed senior director, solutions media, responsible for the automotive, consumer products and retail categories.
Isabelle Rochefort, former director of sales and marketing for TVA Sports, has been named a senior director while Katia Villeneuve, former director, national sales, convergent solutions, will now oversee local sales.
