• by Wayne Friedman , June 30, 2009

Former NBC senior advertising sales executive Keith Turner has been named vice chairman of the board of directors of Mercury Media, a large independent, direct-response media agency.

Turner's efforts will be to advise Mercury Media on convincing major TV advertisers to put more of their budgets into direct-response advertising.

A 19-year veteran at NBC, Turner rose to president of NBC Universal sales and marketing from 1998 and 2006. He was responsible for television advertising sales across all NBC Universal's networks including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, Sci Fi, mun2 and Telemundo, as well as iVillage. This included cable and digital sales, prime-time, daytime, late night, news, sports and the Olympics.

Before joining NBC in 1987, Turner began his career at Grey Advertising.

Direct-response advertising has seen resurgence during the current weak economic market. It has also risen in response to major TV advertisers demanding specific returns on their media investments.

Mercury Media says it's the largest privately owned, full-service direct-response media agency in the country. Started in 1989, the company specializes in long-form, short-form and digital direct-response advertising.