TITAN HAS CREATED MANY NEW POSITIONS FOLLOWING ITS ACQUISITION OF MAIDEN
William M. Apfelbaum, Worldwide chairman, Titan Worldwide
I take particular exception to your article regarding my company, Titan Worldwide (Departures from Titan fuel speculation, page 5, 20 March).
While it is true that our group sales director Steve Atkinson has departed, it was by mutual agreement and we wish him well in his future endeavors.
The loss of Anthony Waithe, a research director who was only with us for two months, creates an opening that we will not fill at Titan.
While you correctly state that in the 11 months since we acquired Maiden last year there have been 80 departures, you neglected to mention there have been 107 new hires for a net gain of 27 more employees.
When we acquired Maiden, it was clear to everyone in the business that a significant turnaround was necessary and there would be high staff turnover for any who did not share Titan's work ethic and vision.
While Maiden had a debt of £40m, Titan Outdoor UK doesn't have any.
I would be curious to know the industry insider who was quoted as saying this was the "beginning of the end for Titan".
Several disgruntled competitors come to mind. Titan has never been healthier and continues to be the fastest growing company in the history of the out-of-home business.
While it is true that we lost the Northern Rail contract to CBS, it was a break-even contract at best and had virtually no impact on our rail offering.
Yes, the inherited Network Rail contract is a tough one, but it is one that will be profitable with new installations, new research, new marketing and more selling.
We are also spending £7m on new products in 2007.
Floundering? No way.
OWNERS AND ADVERTISERS MUST ADAPT TO LANDSCAPE
Ben Allan, Managing director, Tilt, publisher of asrecommended
I read with interest your news analysis Hubs shape newspaper landscape (page 20, 20 March) and the profile of Dave King, executive director at The Telegraph.
The articles highlighted quite valuably how advertising teams are adjusting to the rise in news channels and, more importantly, learning from their editorial counterparts.
The following day, I noticed the front page of The Independent carried the headline: "50 reasons to love the EU".
Whether you love making the French eat British Beef or are a Eurosceptic, the article highlights this newspaper's willingness to realign its editorial style in the face of growing news channels.
As an advertiser and media owner, it is important to adapt to the changing landscape.
However, it is also just as important for the editorial teams to move with the times and change their style of journalism, rather than just repeat it across distribution channels.
As a consumer who gets his daily dose of news from BBC Breakfast and online, it was encouraging to see a more feature-led headline, albeit one that would drive Eurosceptics mad.
RELYING ON AD HOC E-MAILS IS SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH
Trevor Cole, Director, Datum International
Most UK organisations rely on websites to provide an increasing proportion of sales leads.
Yet how many have good, integrated, automated processes to manage these leads? How many web form-based requests from potential customers for information, quotes or a demonstration, are simply left in an in-box for days?
Without processes to track these requests, organisations are missing out on significant commercial opportunities. Relying on individuals to forward the request or enter information into the sales system is not good enough.
E-mail is undoubtedly a valuable communication tool, but only if used within a controlled, audited environment that ensures the information is captured for commercial benefit. To maximise these sales opportunities, organisations must ensure any information entered into a web form is automatically captured and becomes a process that can be tracked and audited. Managers can then ensure the sales team is following up sales requests.
Once the web-based shop window is integrated into the core business processes, organisations have a platform to transform customer interaction. For any organisation looking to drive costs down and service levels up, this level of integration is becoming a prerequisite - relying on ad hoc e-mails is simply not good enough.
JICIMS MANAGER CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR NRS
Peter Bowman, Manager, Jicims
I think a vital sentence or two got squeezed out of Media Week's otherwise detailed description of the arrangements between the new Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement and the well established National Readership Survey (page 15, 13 March).
The manager of Jicims cannot claim to be "responsible for the National Readership Survey", but did explain that Jicims was very fortunate that its first data was an internet establishment survey collected via a small section of the questionnaire administered to the NRS' renowned and continuous nationally representative random sample.
This "Richard Bowman"? He seems to have followed the same career path as me.
DAY IN DRAGONS' DEN WAS AN ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE
Will Callaghan, Editor, mansized.co.uk
Thanks for covering my appearance on Dragons' Den (Media Bitch, page 42, 13 March). However, there are a couple of points I'd like to clarify. Your article stated: "Aren't those graphs a bit flat?", asked Dragon Richard Farleigh. To which Callaghan admitted: "There isn't much money to be made from publishing."
Farleigh said "graph" not "graphs". We took two along - one showed our traffic going through the roof, the other wasn't displaying a trend, rather a snapshot of mansized versus its competitors.
The "isn't much money" quote was an hour later, but edited to seem part of the same conversation. We were talking about how much freelancers get paid and we all know there's not a lot of money for them.
It's a shame we didn't secure the investment, but I enjoyed the day and it wasn't half as bad as people make out.