Emily Steel of The Wall Street Journal reports that Meredith, the Des Moines-based lifestyle publisher, has been busy eating Madison Avenue’s lunch.
According to the article Meredith Integrated Marketing has created custom publishing, email, social media and mobile campaigns for major marketers, including Kraft Foods, Chrysler and Wells Fargo. If you go to the company’s Web site, it says they’ve worked with over 200 of America’s best-known companies since 1969.
“Look at the marketing and media landscape today, you are seeing a dramatic reshaping,” says Jack Griffin, president of Meredith’s National Media Group. “I don’t think there is any way around the fact that companies like ours that are media-and-marketing companies have to be proficient in and capable at this craft.”
“Almost in the darkness of night, they have been assembling all these assets and resources and people to build up an empire,” says, Russel Wohlwerth, a principal at Ark Advisors, a consulting firm that matches ad and marketing agencies with advertisers. He adds, “It’s a great model for the future.”
Personally, I’m a fan. Of Meredith and of doing away with false barriers between editorial and advertising. Plus, if you’re a company that needs to reach homemakers (who make the majority of a household’s purchasing decisions) in Des Moines, or in Peoria, as the case may be, Meredith is going to deliver. I assure you the people who work at Meredith are in touch with an America that many Manhattan ad execs have only heard about.
PREVIOUSLY ON ADPULP: Not Paying Attentions? Sorry, You’re Disintermediated.