Bizcommunity.com, AdVantage strategic partnership announced

Marsland has been appointed editor-in-chief and brand strategist of AdVantage after founding editor and industry doyen John Farquhar's announcement last month of his departure in December 2008 from Primedia Publishing. Marsland has been Editor of Bizcommunity.com for five years, helping to build the much-loved brand and to increase weekly requested subscribers from 20 000 to 75 000, ensuring it is the must-read daily in the media, marketing and advertising industry.

A digital highlights edition of the iconic South African advertising magazine, AdVantage, will be produced monthly in the New Year for the subscribers of Bizcommunity.com. Bizcommunity is already the online media partner to the 2009 AdVantage AdMag Awards.

Collaboration

Said Bizcommunity.com MD Robin Parker, “Bizcommunity has developed a culture of partnerships in quality content in recent years and this sees this strategy take a step upwards. Effectively this will be the pivot on which future relationships and content innovations will be built. With the challenges facing the industry during this economic downturn, collaboration will ensure ongoing brand success.

“We are working hard with interesting local and international content offerings to bring about a maturity to the Bizcommunity offering at this critical stage of its existence. Louise will continue to play an integral part in this as we forge closer ties with publishers of common interest.”

Commented Primedia Publishing CEO Jacques Breytenbach, “Strategic partnerships have become most critical in delivering qualified added value offerings to readers, advertisers and clients. Why recreate the online wheel for AdVantage magazine when a world-class digital wheel in the form of Bizcommunity already exists? This strategic partnership between Bizcommunity.com and AdVantage magazine is the ‘media-wedding' of the year. Not only will these two leading media brands build on each other's strengths, I foresee an explosion of organic innovation as a result of refreshed strategic vision. The future is about partnerships.”

B2B evangelist

Marsland is a media veteran who has spent 22 years in the media industry, starting her career in daily newspapers in the late 1980s, working at The Citizen, The Star and The Saturday Star before entering business-to-business publishing in 1995 at Primedia Publishing as editor of Progressive Retailing. She is also a former editor of Marketing Mix, has just completed the requirements for her degree, Masters in Commerce: Strategy and Organisational Dynamics, and is the co-founder of the South African Editor's Chapter of TABPI (Trade, Association and Business Publications International).

Describing herself as a B2B media evangelist, believing that trade media contributes to growing knowledge, building capacity and are a key to the economic health of industry sectors, Marsland says she is looking forward to the challenge of relaunching AdVantage to reflect the diversity of the dynamic South African advertising industry which can hold its own internationally, the young and vibrant players within the sector and the user-generated content revolution in communications media.

Concludes Bizcommunity.com founding director, Andre Rademan, “Over the last five years, Bizcommunity.com and Louise Marsland have successfully fulfilled the vision of building a dynamic online community for the South African marketing communications and media sectors. Louise is a great asset to the South African media industry. We wish her every success in the future and look forward to exploring new strategic opportunities with AdVantage.”

Marsland takes up her new position at AdVantage magazine on January 5, 2009. A new editor for Bizcommunity will be announced in due course.