Guardian and Observer seek senior marketer

Guardian and Observer Newspapers is looking for a senior marketer to help marketing director Stephen Palmer run the department.

The specific nature of the role has yet to be agreed, but the person appointed will report directly to Palmer.

The group is looking internally and externally to fill the role.

Caroline Marland, managing director, says: “Palmer has decided he wants to have someone working for him but we have not decided what that role is going to be.”

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Guardian’s average net circulation for the six months, which ended April was 398,437, down 0.84 per cent on the same period last year.

Palmer appointed Partners BDDH to conduct a branding campaign for The Guardian, which broke last August.

Changes were then made to The Guardian in April this year, adding emphasis to the newspaper’s Thursday and Friday editions.

Three new tabloid sections on travel, TV listings and personal finance were introduced to the struggling Observer in January and have helped push the Sunday newspaper’s circulation back above 400,000.

These were the first major changes undertaken by the newspaper’s editor Roger Alton since his appointment last July and were supported with a TV advertising campaign through Ogilvy & Mather.

The Observer’s average net circulation for the six months ending in April was 404,346, down 3.04 per cent on the same period last year.