Fairfax Establishes Rural-Focused Ad Sales Unit

Fairfax Media’s regional and rural publishing business Australian Community Media (ACM) has established a specialist advertising sales unit to make it easier for clients to connect to local communities via its hundreds of regional, agricultural and community newspaper titles across Australia, including 16 dailies, and a digital network of more than 140 websites.

The ACM sales team is led by Rodney House as commercial director along with Ian Thomson (pictured above) as national sales director.

House and Thomson are two key appointments in ACM’s new management structure which was recently implemented. Both bring a depth of experience and knowledge across regional, agricultural and community publishing and have proven capability in leading a team of sales professionals focused on providing advertisers with ways to effectively reach large-scale audiences across print and digital platforms.

Rodney House

“We are transforming how we do business to have an even stronger customer focus,” House said. “Our teams are multi-platform experts who put the customers’ requirements first. I encourage all clients to provide feedback on how we can help them grow their businesses.”

Rodney joined Fairfax Media in 2005 and has served in a variety of roles including national advertising manager for The Sunday Age, national sales director for employment, Fairfax integrated group sales manager and agency group director for Fairfax Media. In 2013, he joined Australian Community Media to develop sales strategy for Fairfax Media’s regional mastheads.

In his new role as ACM’s commercial director, House’s responsibilities extend to sales in agricultural, regional and community mastheads including The Canberra Times, The Land, St George & Sutherland Shire Leader and Newcastle Herald.

“Australians are discerning buyers and with 34% of our population residing outside capital city areas, advertisers neglect a huge market if they don’t include regional and rural Australia in their schedules,” said House.

“My job is to make it easy for customers to reach these buyers.”

Thomson has more than 36 years’ experience in regional and agricultural publishing including 22 years working in the national sales environment. For the past 20 years, he has led the Fairfax Agricultural National Sales team and been instrumental in initiating some of the best agricultural media research available in Australia.

“My absolute goal is to make it simpler for advertisers to reach regional, agricultural and community-based Australians with one contact,” Thomson said. “I am committed to providing cost-effective solutions that don’t force customers to create numerous versions of the same ad when they advertise with us.”

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