APA launches new initiative for customer publishers

by John Reynolds, mediaweek.co.uk 03-Jul-09, 10:55

LONDON - The Association of Publishing Agencies, the trade body for the customer publishing industry, has launched a new planning initiative as it looks to inprove communication with media agencies and lure more business to the industry.

The initiative, APA Planners, encompasses a range of services for planners, such as monthly briefings and seminars, a dedicated website for planners, and an extension of the APA's free business consultancy that it offers clients.

The initiative, which follows a research study commissioned by the APA into media planner attitudes to customer publishing, will be headed by APA chairman Patrick Fuller and chief operating officer Julia Hutchinson.

The APA said the service, which will be free of charge, will offer planners "easy access to the medium".

Hutchinson said the APA had not targeted planners in the past, but added that the service was being launched because the customer publishing industry "can be a daunting task for those with little experience of the breadth of the medium."