Julian Dobinson, Granada Media’s head of planning and sales
research, is quitting the company to join BSkyB.
The Granada Media employee of four years will join Sky as head of sales
research at the beginning of March.
He replaces Chris Mundy, who is leaving to head research at the BBC.
Dobinson will report to Sky’s head of sales operations Peter Shea and
have responsibility for a team of 14 sales research and planning
staff.
Dobinson will also work closely with the broadcaster’s sales controller
Mark Chippendale, who is in charge of the development of new media and
interactive advertising at Sky.
When he joins Sky next month, Dobinson will take on responsibility for
handling the BARB figures and study the potential of interactive
advertising on digital TV. He also aims to develop sales strategies that
will ’drive Sky’s business forward’.
Dobinson said: ’Sky is now at the forefront of the changes in digital TV
and interactivity. As the digital take-up rate is growing, we need solid
audience research figures to feed to advertisers and media agencies.
Until BARB sorts itself out, this will prove difficult.’
He continued: ’BARB is up for tender soon and the new ownership of the
organisation will not be announced until April. Digital will only be a
commercially viable success once research data is solid enough to
support the medium fully.’
Meanwhile, Sky is also looking to recruit three media planners to work
alongside each of its three sales groups. The company reorganised its
sales department into three separate groups at the end of last year
(Media Business, 6 December). Each group contains spot, internet, text
and sponsorship sales executives to enable buyers to purchase integrated
campaigns easily.
The new planners will report to Gillian Stokes, who is responsible for
strategic planning across the three groups. She said: ’We are looking
for planners who can go headlong into the sales groups with a
comprehensive understanding of the media mix. They need to find a way of
getting Sky to fit into an advertising strategy rather than thinking
only in terms of airtime sales.’
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