Bauer chief Vidler outlines plans to reignite creativity

Andria Vidler, the chief marketing officer at Bauer Media, is talking to advertising agencies about working with its business development and creative solutions teams as part of a move to “re-energise” creativity at the magazine and radio company.

Speaking exclusively to Marketing Week, Vidler says she is keen to reignite the creativity that “EMAP was famous for”. She adds: “I want to re-energise that, because there has been a lot going on over the past 12 months.”

She says she has had conversations with agencies about the best way of working with them, but is not clear “how it will manifest itself”. She adds that another option is to hire creative or “big-idea type people”.

The move follows a number of changes to Bauer’s cross-platform sales team. It has promoted Adrian Serle, previously Bauer Advertising radio sales director, to the new role of commercial development director, overseeing all of its cross-media teams, including Bauer Enterprise, Bauer2, TV S&P and trade marketing.

Vidler says following the changes to the cross-media division, which are part of wider restructure of the company, she can now look at “investing real creative resources”.

She adds: “I am talking to creative agencies about how we can work with them, not to bypass media agencies, but to enable us to really invest and raise the bar on creative thinking, in terms of the ideas and creative solutions we go back to advertisers with.”