• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 8, 2016

Time Inc. is shaking up its advertising sales and marketing structure with three new, industry-specific divisions focused on the automotive, pharmaceuticals, and technology and telecommunications categories, the publisher announced.

The new structure, with a team of dedicated sales personnel focused exclusively on each category, is intended to help advertising clients and agencies execute integrated marketing campaigns across print and digital channels.

Leading the new organization is Mark Ellis, who has been appointed to the newly created role of president and chief operating officer of Time Inc. sales and marketing. In this position, he will be directly responsible for the automotive division and will also oversee the work of two other executives, Greg Schumann and Brendan Ripp, at the pharma and tech and telco categories, respectively.

Greg Schumann has been named president of the pharmaceuticals division, after previously serving as senior vice president and group publishing director of Southern Living, Coastal Living and Sunset. Ripp is serving as president of the tech and telco division, having previously served as senior vice-president and publishing director of Sports Illustrated.

The new organization is just the latest in a series of changes and additions introduced by Time Inc. on the sales side, many of them focusing on specific categories.

Last month, for example, the publisher unveiled a new political ad-targeting service for campaign media buyers in collaboration with Audience Partners, which specializes in programmatic advertising targeting precise voter segments. The new service, called “CampaignFocus,” provides contextual targeting across Time Inc.’s network of publications, with a total print and digital audience of 160 million.

Also last month, Time Inc. launched a new social ad product, “Real Time,” that taps the publisher's social audience in partnership with SocialFlow. Real Time allows advertisers to target custom content segments that its audiences engage with most, in categories like beauty, food and travel.