Primedia Moving to Leverage About for Cross-Selling

Special interest magazine giant Primedia Tuesday gave another indication of how it plans to use its recently-acquired About, Inc. Web properties — and monetize its existing Web sites — through the establishment of a dedicated integrated sales group.

Tuesday, the company announced that former American Baby Group president Darcy Miller would head up the effort as president of Primedia’s Integrated Sales and Marketing Group.

According to the company, Miller will be responsible for heading up PRISM’s cross-platform sales and marketing efforts, by creating advertisng packages combining Primedia’s print, video, sampling, custom publishing and events business — as well as the company’s 1,000-plus Internet properties, which include sites it added with the acquisition of About, Inc.

For instance, a potential packaged product might include a media buy on About’s Parenting/Family channel with American Baby inventory.

What makes this important is that it’s the first time Primedia will be organized to sell horizontally across all of its media properties, as well as across both traditional and new media.

“Primedia is focused on driving growth across the company by effectively integrating our assets in print, broadcast and the Internet,” said Primedia chairman and chief executive officer Tom Rogers. “The creation of our Integrated Sales & Marketing Group will enable us to more effectively capitalize on the depth and breadth of our products.”

Primedia tapped Miller for her experience in developing cross-platform sales among the magazines in its American Baby group — which includes six magazines as well as Web sites and two television shows. American Baby also features several sampling services and, according to Primedia, a cross-media synergistic marketing machine set up by Miller.

“Darcy has been central to the success of the American Baby Group and has been particularly effective at creating fully integrated multi-platform advertising and marketing products,” said John Loughlin, president and chief executive of Primedia’s consumer media and magazine unit. “She understands the changing dynamic in the media world and knows how to leverage our assets in print, broadcast and the Internet to the benefit of our advertisers and the company.”

In the newly created position, Miller will report jointly to Loughlin and About chairman and CEO Scott Kurnit, who also holds the title of Primedia’s chief internet officer.