quadrantONE delivers solutions for premium advertisers seeking prime audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE brings together exclusive ad inventory on more than 500 premium local news and information sites across the nation’s top markets and best in breed technology for national brands. The company recently expanded its reach into the south via its newly-opened Atlanta office.

“Shelley brings a wealth of experience from a wide variety of clients to our organization,” said Mario Diez, CEO of quadrantONE. “She has experience in nearly every facet of digital advertising strategy, including online display advertising, search, email, mobile marketing, marketing communications, and Web site development. As quadrantONE expands our solution set to deliver local audiences on a national scale, Shelley will be a driving force in our efforts.”

As Director of Market and Product Strategy, Eleby will oversee all of quadrantONE’s marketing communications, with a focus on growing client adoption of quadrantONE’s platform. Eleby will work closely with both the company’s sales teams, to provide the best marketing insights to clients, and with vendors, to develop new service offerings.

Prior to her work as an independent consultant, Eleby served as VP of consumer marketing for LivePerson, a consumer chat platform where she launched a rebranding initiative in radio, print and online and oversaw a team of 10 marketers across various digital and traditional disciplines. She has more than 15 years of experience, holding positions of VP of Marketing at Exchange Place, VP of Acquisition Marketing at TD Waterhouse, and prior to that a history of direct marketing experiences.

“I’m an entrepreneur at heart, so after years of consulting, I’m excited to get back into the everyday hustle and bustle of digital advertising,” said Eleby. “With the online landscape’s constant evolution, I believe quadrantONE has a golden opportunity to embrace the new trend of helping advertisers find the ideal audience via premium, well lit, trusted local environments.”

About quadrantONE

quadrantONE is a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on premium news and information sites across the nation’s top local markets. For the first time, advertisers can consistently deliver their brand and message on a country-wide scale in context with local relevancy in environments they know and that consumers trust.

Diez joined quadrantONE in April as senior vice president in charge of sales, and takes the reins of a company that has grown its business dramatically since his arrival.

quadrantONE delivers solutions for premium advertisers seeking prime audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on more than 500 premium local news and information sites across the nation’s top markets.

“Since Mario joined our team, his leadership has made quadrantONE a more agile sales organization that has delivered stronger results each month,” said Jack Williams, President of Gannett Digital Ventures and quadrantONE board member. “His experience at recognized media sales companies has been a tremendous asset to us.”

“Mario has a deep understanding of the power of quadrantONE’s audience,” said Dan Kazan, Senior Vice President, Investments at Tribune Company and a quadrantONE board member. “quadrantONE’s ability to deliver highly engaged local audiences on a national scale and in a trusted environment is a distinct advantage in the rapidly evolving digital media marketplace.”

As CEO, Diez will oversee quadrantONE’s core strategic direction, working closely with the board of directors and alongside quadrantONE veterans Mimi Wotring, VP of Operations and Affiliate Strategy, and Bill Vorhies, VP of Finance, as well as the rest of quadrantONE’s talented team.

Before joining quadrantONE, Diez was the Vice President of Aperture Sales at Datran Media, launching the division’s sales team and engineering a 300% increase in revenue. Prior to his term at Datran, Diez launched Centro’s local media platform in New York and spent three years as the Vice President of Eastern Region sales. During his tenure at Centro, he retooled the company’s sales strategy and regional operations for the company, dramatically expanding its coverage of the region and growing sales revenue nearly 500%.

“Before I arrived this past spring, I was bullish on quadrantONE and the opportunity there, but in the weeks that followed, I saw how much larger the opportunity could be,” said Diez. “Everyone buying online talks about audience identification, reach and activation, but people forget that the media brands we all recognize as the most prominent ones became so prominent for a reason – these media brands engage their audience every day.”

About quadrantONE

quadrantONE is a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on premium news and information sites across the nation’s top local markets. For the first time, advertisers can consistently deliver their brand and message on a country-wide scale in context with local relevancy in environments they know and that consumers trust.

Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on 500 + premium local news and information sites across the nation’s top markets.

Diez will oversee quadrantONE’s sales and marketing strategies working closely with the board of directors alongside quadrantONE veterans Mimi Wotring, VP of Operations and Affiliate Strategy, Bill Vorhies, VP of Finance, and the rest of quadrantONE’s talented team.

Before coming to quadrantONE, Diez was the Vice President of Aperture Sales at Datran Media, engineering the company’s display sales division’s revenue to increase 300%.

Diez spent three years as the Vice President of Eastern Region sales at Centro, introducing the company’s local media platform to the region and retooling the sales strategy and regional operations. During his tenure there, he dramatically expanded the company’s coverage of the region and grew sales revenue nearly 500%.

quadrantONE continues to thrive, on track to double last year’s revenues. In 2009, 130 new advertisers came aboard and 230 new campaigns were launched, driving growth up 500% from the previous year.

“quadrantONE is the perfect mix of a passionate team and strong, established business model,” says Diez. “This company really fits an industry need for quality content blended with advanced audience targeting, and the growth trajectory proves it.”

“With Mario coming aboard, quadrantONE is poised with greater sales agility and organization”, says Jack Williams, President of Gannett Digital Ventures and quadrantONE board member. “The company has already come fast out of the gate this year, so Mario joins us at just the right time.”

About quadrantONE

quadrantONE is a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc. ,Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on premium news and information sites across the nation’s top local markets. For the first time, advertisers can consistently deliver their brand and message on a country-wide scale in context with local relevancy in environments they know and that consumers trust.

Brand Affinity Technologies, Inc. (BAT), the company reinventing endorsement marketing, and quadrantONE, a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on advertisers seeking prime audiences and national reach, have partnered to bring endorsements to premium online newspaper advertising.

Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co. Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on 500+ premium local news and information sites across the nation’s top markets. Now, quadrantONE advertisers will be able to incorporate locally relevant endorsement talent into national campaigns.

“The challenge for national brands is to achieve the benefits of local targeting, but at a scale that makes sense for their businesses.” said Andy Ellenthal, CEO of quadrantONE. “Representing the best local news, sports and entertainment content that exists with scale, a partnership with BAT allows our clients to easily activate multiple endorsement deals, fueling national ad campaigns with creative that taps the passion of local audiences.”

BAT’s Endorsement Platform currently includes more than 3,300 superstar athletes and celebrities, covering every U.S. DMA, making it easy for advertisers of all sizes to launch cross-media campaigns featuring the most valuable endorsement talent. BAT provides detailed analysis of talent affinity; video, still, and audio assets; and standardized negotiations, contracts, and rights so that endorsed campaigns can be up-and-running in weeks or even days.

“quandrantONE advertisers already understand the power of premium local, online content,” said Ryan Steelberg, President and CEO of BAT. “Endorsements provide a meaningful connection to this local content, and to local consumers, making national campaigns highly relevant to target audiences.”

According to a new survey conducted by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America, local newspaper sites ranked first among all media sources for trustworthiness, credibility and being the most informative place to find local content – including news, information, entertainment and sports. Announced in Feb. 2010, the survey found that 57 percent of respondents identified local newspaper Web sites as the top online source for local information — ahead of the totals for all other media. That percentage grows for upper income households (63 percent) and for the college educated (60 percent), making online news and information sites a prime target for national brand advertisers.

BAT and quadrantONE will kick off their relationship with a series of events in cities across the country which will bring together advertisers and star athletes. The first event will take place in Atlanta on March 18 and will feature basketball hall-of-famer Dominique Wilkins, Atlanta Falcons defensive end Lawrence Sidbury, and Atlanta Hawks point guard Jeff Teague. Other spring events will take place in Dallas, Chicago and Boston.

About quadrantONE

quadrantONE (www.quadrantone.com) is a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co. Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on premium news and information sites across the nation’s top local markets. For the first time, advertisers can consistently deliver their brand and message on a country-wide scale in context with local relevancy in environments they know and that consumers trust.

About Brand Affinity Technologies, Inc. (BAT)

Founded in 2007, BAT (http://brandaffinity.net) is reinventing the business of endorsement marketing by making it easy and affordable for advertisers of all sizes to launch ad campaigns featuring athletes and celebrities. Advertisers use BAT’s Endorsement Platform to identify, license, and activate the most effective talent for their campaigns, based on brand and targeting considerations. Currently, BAT’s Platform features more than 3,300 top athletes and celebrities in markets nationwide, and is used by leading advertisers to build brand value and boost campaign performance. BAT’s celebrity roster includes Olympic athletes and marquee active and retired players in nearly every sport, including Drew Brees (NFL), Jorge Posada (MLB), Rajon Rondo (NBA), Brooks Robinson (MLB – Hall of Fame), Walt Frazier (NBA – Hall of Fame), and Lennox Lewis (Boxing). Since 1996, BAT founders Ryan and Chad Steelberg have raised over $150 million in equity financing and created over $3.0 billion in shareholder value through previous ventures including AdForce (sold to CMGi in 1999 for $500 Million) and dMarc Broadcasting (acquired by Google, Inc. in February, 2006 for up to $1.238 Billion).

When newspapers have garnered instantly recognizable local nicknames like “The Trib,” and “Freep,” it’s easy to argue that these brands have built up as much brand equity as Apple, Target and Disney. Sure, brands can be eaten, drunk, played with or driven, but they can also be read.

Like the Good Housekeeping seal, newspapers have become the assumed guarantee of credible news and information, by other media, businesses and consumers as well. Leveraging this brand trust, the entire public relations industry is interested in earning newspaper coverage for companies that seek to improve their public identity.

Part of the reason newspaper brands are so pervasive is because they gracefully capture their audience offline and online: according to the current Nielsen Online numbers, people visiting newspaper sites hit a new high in the first quarter with an average of 73.3 million unique users, a 10.5% jump compared to the same period a year ago. That’s like reaching almost an entire Super Bowl viewing audience every three months.

Carrying over from their print-based parents, the public has formed a trusted bond with the newspaper websites of their community, more so than with other media. An August 2008 Online Publishers Association study with Jupiter Research showed that local newspaper sites lead all others in advertising trust. What really gets me excited is that this trust spills into how consumers perceive advertising and ultimately take action from the information presented on these sites. The OPA study goes on to state that newspaper website readers are also more likely to spend and take action from the information presented by these publishers.

There you have it, the proof is in the pudding — or really, the purchase.

Newspaper branding’s next frontier may be on your mobile phone’s screen, E-readers, and other Jetson-era gadgets. But rest assured the new technologies will include those familiar logos right next to the other apps you just downloaded. If you’re waiting for your airport connecting flight, in a taxi rushing to your sales conference or even standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, you’re going to trust those names for veteran political analysis, your favorite food critic discussing the latest restaurant opening, and first person notes of last night’s town zoning meeting. So while the format may evolve and change, the trusted brands will remain.

By Andy Ellenthal

quadrantONE connects blue chip online advertisers to high quality, locally engaged audiences with a national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co. Inc., Hearst

Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on 340 + premium local news and information sites across the nation’s top markets.Built on the award-winning mobile platform, AP News (http://www.apnews.com), was launched in May 2008 as the first product released by AP’s Digital Cooperative, an initiative aimed at finding new digital outlets for news and information produced by AP members. Monthly traffic for AP Mobile has topped 38 million page views. comScore research indicates that mobile is growing at unprecedented rates, with 107percent growth in daily access to mobile news in the last year alone — more than 63 million users, with 35 percent of them accessing news daily.

“Advertisers have already begun to leverage our new national partnership with APMobile,” says quadrantONE’s Andy Ellenthal. “AP Mobile is just the beginning of our expansion into all platforms in reaching the most prized consumers.”“quadrantONE’s understanding of the newspaper market makes them a logical partner for AP Mobile and its award-winning application for smartphones,” said Jeffrey Litvack, general manager of mobile and emerging products at AP. Today, AP Mobile covers the entire 100 top designated market areas boasting a growing number of content contributors to create a seamless, rich mobile news media experience. More than 1,100 news organizations have signed up to provide local news stories through the AP mobile platform. AP Mobile also offers device-optimized applications for BlackBerry and iPhone, with more client applications on the way.

About quadrantONE

quadrantONE is a joint venture of four major media companies that focuses on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Backed by Tribune Company, Gannett Co. Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company, quadrantONE offers exclusive ad inventory on premium news and information sites across the nation’s top local markets. For the first time, advertisers can consistently deliver their brand and message on a country-wide scale in context with local relevancy in environments they know and that consumers trust.

About The Associated Press

The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information. Developed by The Associated Press, AP Mobile is an award-winning multimedia news portal providing anytime access to international, national and local news content from AP and more than 1,100 AP members and other trusted sources. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees news from AP.

Four of the country’s leading media companies today announced the creation of quadrantONE, a new online sales organization focused on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. Investors in the new network include Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company.

“By aggregating the online audiences of quadrantONE’s participating media companies, large national advertisers can immediately access tens of millions of unique visitors in the country’s top markets,” said Dana Hayes, Interim CEO, quadrantONE, and senior vice president for sales of Tribune Interactive. “Each participating company has agreed to dedicate advertising inventory to quadrantONE, so the network can offer customized online campaigns on a highly competitive basis. Imagine placing the same ad across hundreds of local Web sites on the same day with one buy—that’s the power of this network.”

The network has a reach of nearly 50 million monthly unique visitors [Source: Nielsen Online, Dec. 2007] and covers 27 out of the top 30 markets. quadrantONE will, for the first time, offer advertisers the capability to consistently deliver their brands and messages on a national scale through advertising with the well-established and trusted online newspaper and broadcasting sites of the participating media companies.

“For the first time, the media industry will be able to compete effectively for advertising dollars currently going to the national portals and others,” said Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital Ventures. “quadrantONE’s audience is of the highest quality. By networking our Web sites, we have delivered – in one stroke – the reach and scope desired by national advertisers.”

The network will cover the nation’s top markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Detroit, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Cincinnati, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Orlando, San Antonio, Sarasota, Ft. Lauderdale, San Jose and Albany, N.Y. A full list of participating Web sites is available at www.quadrantONE.com.

Chris Boothe, president/chief activation officer at Starcom USA, said: “When faced with a growing number of fragmented ad media options, particularly on the Web, advertisers are looking for new opportunities and innovative models providing a valuable, measurable consumer experience. quadrantONE steps up to the challenge of the new media future, and on behalf of our advertisers, we appreciate that it provides hyperlocalized opportunities for brand impact that resonate with targeted audiences.”

Starcom handles media planning and buying for some of the world’s biggest brands.

“With the rapid expansion of online inventory, advertisers we talk with are seeking trusted alternatives,” added Steven Ainsley, publisher of The Boston Globe. “Guaranteed placements within quality branded environments, coupled with the ease of a one-order, one-invoice approach to a national buy, makes for a very competitive proposition.”

Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president for digital media at Hearst Newspapers, said, “We now have the ability to offer advertisers the aggregated inventory of our prized content categories such as health, business news, technology, sports, personal finance and auto news. That’s never been possible before.”