Tribune Appoints Geoffrey Melick as SVP/Health

Marketing Veteran Leads Advertising Efforts and New Product Development in Health care Sector

CHICAGO, January 4, 2010 -- Tribune Company today announced the appointment of Geoffrey Melick as SVP/Health, responsible for developing advertiser solutions and new advertising and marketing products related to the healthcare industry. He will also oversee Healthkey.com, the company’s website devoted to healthcare issues. Melick’s appointment is effective immediately.

"Spending related to healthcare issues, products and services is exploding, and our newspapers, television stations and websites need to be getting an increasingly larger share of it," said Randy Michaels, Tribune’s chief executive officer. "Geoff has tremendous talent and experience and will lead our efforts to develop better targeted advertising and marketing solutions related to the healthcare industry."

Melick joins Tribune from Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (CAHG), an Omnicom Company, where he served as EVP/Interactive Marketing and eInnovation. He also served as managing director at Kinect Interactive Digital Communications, where he was responsible for the development of multi-channel strategies and the creation of online and digital communications.

Melick has extensive experience in developing online advertising and marketing products and was one of the founding members of McCann Erickson’s Interactive Group in 1989. While at McCann Interactive, Melick was a member of the MIT Media Lab, one of the leading interactive think tanks in the world. In 1995, he left McCann to found Two Way Communications, focused on pharmaceutical, financial and eCommerce marketing. His clients at Two Way Communications included Eli Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson.

"Tribune has great brands offering a unique opportunity to create world-class advertising and marketing solutions for healthcare clients trying to reach a variety of audiences across different media platforms," said Melick. "During the last couple of years Tribune has developed some very innovative advertising approaches for healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies and consumers/patients -- but there is a lot of opportunity to do even more."

SOURCE: Tribune Company