Six more AAN members have joined Ruxton and industry veteran Yolanda Luszcz was promoted to head the national advertising agency's burgeoning digital network, according to a press release issued this morning. The Shepherd Express, the Memphis Flyer and Gambit Weekly have all chosen Ruxton to represent them for national sales in both print and digital mediums, while Boise Weekly, Seven Days and Isthmus have joined the Ruxton Digital Media Network (RDMN) for non-exclusive representation of their digital products. Ruxton has also created a Publishers Advisory Committee (PAC) for RDMN, "to ensure that Ruxton's publisher partners are fully vested in the rapidly changing world of digital marketing and advertising." The first elections for PAC reps will be the week of September 15, and the PAC's first meeting will be October 23 in Houston.
Baltimore City Paper, Metro Times, Orlando Weekly and the San Antonio Current are as of today exclusively represented by Ruxton for national print advertising, according to a press release. The papers will join their newly-acquired sister paper, the Cleveland Scene, as part of the advertising network owned and operated by Village Voice Media. VVM chief operating officer Scott Tobias says the discussions about joining Ruxton began while VVM and Times-Shamrock were negotiating the sale of the Scene earlier this year. The addition of the four papers means Ruxton has a print presence in 50 American cities, including all of the top 20 markets, with a total weekly print circulation of more than 3.6 million.
CL's publications in Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Charlotte and Sarasota have joined the company's Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper as members of Ruxton, according to a press release issued this afternoon by Village Voice Media's national advertising firm. Under the arrangement, Ruxton will serve as Creative Loafing's exclusive representative for national print advertising and also will provide non-exclusive representation for online advertising.
The national advertising firm announced today that all "AAN publications that meet a set of standards and practices specifications are eligible for non-exclusive representation by the Ruxton Digital Media Network." Ruxton currently represents 39 alt-weeklies and says it is on pace to deliver more than $2 million in digital sales this year to its partner publications. "Our growing success in digital sales to date and increasing demand from advertisers for more inventory has spurred us to open up the network to all AAN papers," Village Voice Media president and chief operating officer Scott Tobias says in a press release. "A large national digital advertising network will give everyone the opportunity to participate in the growth of national digital advertising sales."
