Carolyn Sadler
Toronto’s Star Media Group (SMG) has announced two executive appointments as it begins implementing a new audience-based sales approach aimed at slowing falling ad sales.
The new appointments include Carolyn Sadler as vice-president of sales at Metro English Canada. A 17-year veteran of SMG, Sadler assumes responsibility for sales at the Toronto Star and SMG’s Metro properties.
She has held increasingly senior roles in strategic marketing, advertising sales, and business and strategy development with the company. In 2011, she was tapped to lead the creation of SMG’s integrated solutions and business development unit, which brought together the company’s products and platforms to provide what the organization describes as “value-add solutions” for marketing partners.
She has spent the past six months as managing director, SMG President’s Office, leading the company’s strategic planning process and advancing key audience development, market research and market segmentation initiatives.
“I’m quite well versed in what we need to do over the next few years, so aligning our sales and marketing efforts with that seems like the next phase,” she told Marketing this week.
Sadler said SMG is moving towards an audience-focused approach to sales, a departure from the “product-oriented” approach it has taken in recent years. “It’s definitely a move into better understanding our audiences across our entire portfolio and how they work together,” she said.
In its most recent quarterly earnings report, SMG parent Torstar said a 19.7% decline in print ad revenues for the Star contributed to a $31 million decline in revenues for SMG for the nine months ended Sept. 30, only partially offset by growth in digital and multi-platform subscriber revenue.
The company’s flagship property, the Star, announced in November that it intends to remove the online paywall that has been in place since 2013, and is currently working with Montreal daily La Presse – which has found considerable success with its free LaPresse+ tablet product – to develop an entirely ad-supported product.
“We’re definitely going to be more marketer reliant than we have been historically, so being able to attract the largest audience possible with a solid profile is the path we’re on,” said Sadler.
Asked if she considers dropping the paywall a gamble from a revenue perspective, Sadler responded: “A lot of other organizations may be going down a different path, but for us this seems to be the most likely path.
“We’re of the [opinion] that open access and being able to monetize that with marketers seems to be a better strategic bet than continuing to rely on subscription revenue.”
The company currently has audience analysis in market that will provide it with greater insight into audience insights around both the Star and Metro brands. The first phase will be completed in Q1 2015. “We’re really committed to investing in understanding our audiences and building up new audiences,” she said.
Sadler didn’t provide a timetable for when TheStar.com paywall would be removed, only that it would occur prior to the fall 2015 launch of the free tablet product. Her mandate is to have an advertising strategy in place for when the company flips the switch on the free online product.
SMG also recently announced it was closing the digital operations for Metro in seven markets. Sadler said future announcements would provide context for that decision. “We didn’t necessarily have the numbers to make it a worthwhile venture, so we had to make some longer-term strategic decisions, which we’ve done,” she said.
Mark Finney
The company has also appointed Mark Finney as VP, SMG President’s Office, responsible for the division’s strategic planning and key initiatives aimed at increasing audience engagement and market positioning across its portfolio. He reports directly to SMG president – and Toronto Star publisher – John Cruickshank.
Finney joined Metro in July as the founding leader of Metro Media Sales Division. Finney has held a series of key sales roles in his native England, including being appointed sales director for The Guardian in 2012.
He played a vital role in the creation and execution of the Guardian’s combined print and digital commercial strategy, making it into the world’s third-largest cross platform newspaper brand.
