Meredith Forms Event-Marketing Arm

Meredith Corp. has formed an experiential marketing group and named sales veteran Dave Randell to run it.

Randell is executive director of Meredith Experiential Group, a division of New York-based Meredith Publishing Group. The unit formalizes Meredith’s use of events to plus-up ad buys in its magazines and extend the magazines’ own brand equity, such as the More Model Search, Ladies’ Home Journal Wedding Vow Renewal, Family Circle Cup, and the Fitness Mind, Body & Spirit Games.

The division, formed in late July, works with Meredith’s marketing and sales staff to build on ad revenues through sponsorships and cross-platform marketing that brings advertisers off the pages and into markets with events.

Randell had been director of marketing innovation and corporate sales before taking the new post. Earlier, Randell worked in Gruner + Jahr’s corporate sales and marketing group, and before that was VP-account director/new business development at Alcone Marketing.

Randell is Meredith Experiential Group’s sole employee; Meredith plans to add staff over the next year.

Meredith Corp.’s fiscal 2006 ad revenues of $952 million accounted for 59.5% of its total revenues of $1.6 billion (up 31% from 2005). Meredith Publishing’s ad revenues were $641 million, up 49% for the year ended June 30—mostly from the addition of titles that Meredith bought in 2005 from Gruner + Jahr for $350 million (Parents, Family Circle, Fitness, Child and Ser Padres). Ad sales were up only 6% when those titles are excluded.

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