The Age wins top advertising excellence award

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The Age has taken out one of the newspaper industry’s top advertising awards at a gala dinner in Sydney last night.

At the Pacific Area National Publishers Association’s annual Newspaper Advertising Excellence Awards, it was announced that Valentina Trifunov of The Age, was voted the Outstanding Display Advertising Sales Executive for Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific. The judging period was from January 1, 2006 – December 31, 2006.

The PANPA awards recognise creative excellence for in-house advertising, the best tactical use of newspapers, best promotion of newspapers as a medium and excellence in newspaper professionals.

Ms Trifunov, a key account manager at The Age, won the award for an outstanding performance in growing both client and Fairfax businesses.

Her achievements include:

• Generating in excess of $3.5 million of new revenue during 2006
• Growing client revenue by more than 20%, with volumes increasing by 35%
• Growing revenue for The Sunday Age’s new section “M” by 45%
• Achieving 60% of sales growth from new clients
• Project managing The Age’s Bid2Buy auction initiative which increased revenues by 85% compared to the previous year
• Won The Age Advertising Sales Person of the Year in 2006

The judges commented: “Valentina’s commitment to her role and her clients is very evident. Feedback from clients and colleagues clearly supports this. Valentina’s sales results have been consistently brilliant, generating new revenues while growing her existing accounts”.

David Hoath, Advertising Director of The Age said: “Val is an outstanding recipient of the PANPA award. She represents all the qualities, attributes and tangible achievements one would expect of a winner of this prestigious award. She has demonstrated both to her clients and her peers the enduring strength of newspapers as an effective advertising medium”.

Mr Hoath said Ms Trifunov had played a key role in The Age’s strong commercial performance which had seen it gain significant market share in display and classifieds over the past year.

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For further information:

Nigel Henham
Communications Director
The Age
03 9601 2997

David Hoath
Advertising Director
The Age
03 9601 2998

Release Date: 20 Mar 2007 00:00