Ask Mail Metro Media Chief Client Officer Claudine Collins what brand advertisers most want today from media owners and her answer is clear. Over and beyond commercial solutions that meet their business objectives, it’s trust, integrity and simplicity – all of which she has been working to ensure Mail Metro Media (MMM) delivers in spades in her first three months in her role.
“Publishers need to make their commercial offer as easy as possible for clients to understand and to access. Generally, some publishers are doing better than others. Even so, quite a few remain siloed – either between digital and print, or between different products,” she says.
The key is to always put the client, their business and their commercial objectives first. And after decades spent in media buying, Collins should know.
In 1995, she joined The Media Business, which became part of MediaCom in 1998, as a press buyer, eventually becoming head of investment overseeing £1bn in annual client billings. After a spell as managing director, she became chief client officer, a role she retained following the 2023 EssenceMediacom merger until she left the company in mid-2025.
After some time out of the industry, during which she turned down a number of job offers, she says her plan was to take on a few non-exec roles – except if her dream job came up. Which was? Chief Client Officer at MMM. Only, that role was already filled. Until MMM Chief Revenue Officer Dominic Williams got in touch to say the incumbent was moving on.
As Collins has known, liked and respected Williams – a one-time head of press buying at Carat – for many years, the decision to take up the position was easy.
“I’d always loved press, having started my career in a press buying department. News. Journalism. Dom – we share the same work ethic and client-first ethos. And having worked with MMM on client briefs from the other side, I knew and respected their approach, which revolves around partnership and collaboration to solve business problems,” she adds.
“It was the right opportunity at the right time.”
As DMG Media’s advertising and commercial arm, MMM’s portfolio spans the Mail, Metro and i brands, the New Scientist, and creator-led social-first shoppable fashion and beauty title Eliza across print, digital, apps, audio and video (plus The Telegraph’s print products). And Collins’ arrival there in late May followed a period of change at the business.
MMM’s new commercial approach
Earlier in the year, there was a shift in the commercial model – a lighter ad load to enhance audience experience, for example; a sales team re-organisation; and a new narrative taken to market built around client demand for capturing valuable audience attention.
Also, she joined a new six-strong senior leadership line-up to work alongside Pierce Cook-Anderson, managing director, advertising; Steven Fletcher, managing director, commercial editorial; Hannah Blake, managing director, new media; Nick Timms, managing director, ad product; and Ryan Uhl, managing director, commerce.
All these changes were about keeping pace with market changes by bridging a gap that had previously existed at MMM between direct and programmatic sales. And they also enabled better articulation and delivery of the Mail’s “modern broadcast publisher” positioning across video, audio and social as well as digital and print.
And all of this has sharpened focus on attention – building it and selling it – which comes from brand trust, product quality and time spent.
Now overseeing MMM’s ten-strong client team, Collins’ brief is further strengthening existing client relationships and building new ones, with a focus on innovative solutions and collaborative partnerships that drive sustainable and meaningful growth. And in one important respect, she is doing so in an unashamedly analogue way.
Relationship building
“Teams or WhatsApp are all fine and well, but you can’t beat actually meeting face to face,” she insists.
That’s because the trust between audience and media product built by product quality is only one component of the trust today’s publishers need to build and protect if they are to prosper. Also critical is the trust between a media owner and its advertisers and commercial partners.
You’ve got to be passionate about your own brand, yes, Collins stresses, but you must also be really passionate about your clients’ brands and business objectives. This makes relationship building and maintenance a must-have skill.
“There’s not much point in a meeting or lunch then not being back in contact for months and months,” she continues.
“To build a relationship, you need to stay in touch, to take an interest, to remember family or pet names. And you can do this and stay in touch regularly and easily, because it takes just a second to send a quick personal message. Also, I believe in talking to anyone when you are out and about on business as you never know who you might end up talking to.”
Collins then goes on to cite as an example an industry breakfast event at which a prospective financial services client was speaking. On approaching the CEO after the presentation, she received a polite brush off.
Yet a connection was made when, after chatting to a pair of women standing alone nearby who turned out to be the CEO’s wife and daughter, she later approached him and asked about his daughter’s exams. As no-one else present at the event had spoken to the pair, they told the CEO about it and having enjoyed the ad hoc conversation, and he remembered.
“The ultimate goal is to show clients if their audience are consuming our portfolio of brands then those clients should be using us more effectively,” Collins adds, returning to her MMM brief. “I have a big network built over many years with many client relationships which can help me open new doors as well as help strengthen existing relationships.”
So, her early months have been spent getting to know the MMM team and face to face meetings wherever possible with as many clients as she can see in a day. Her early wins have been having the right conversations with the right people.
She describes interest in new media capabilities, video and social as high and growing interest in newsletters and commerce as especially significant.
One immediate priority is building interest among brand owners in verticals that are currently lighter MMM portfolio users, such as charities and automotive. Another is building understanding of clients’ evolving wants and needs to inform new advertising and commercial propositions, a number of which will come to market in coming months.
MMM’s approach to working with brand owners is increasingly strategic – beginning with understanding a client’s problem then working with them to tailor a solution, a dedicated client team put together drawn from whichever specialist MMM team is needed: commercial editorial, new media, commerce and so on.
New ad formats
In addition, there is now closer contact between clients and MMM ad product specialists to accelerate both understanding of clients’ evolving problems, wants and needs and optimise the development of new solutions and ad products that help them better meet their objectives. The result, she says, is stronger and deeper relationships – and campaigns.
A case in point is ‘Defeating Dementia’, a recent campaign that arose from a commercial partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society which ran earlier this year – the first use of a new interactive digital ad format developed by MMM called Deep Dive.
A collaboration between the client, creative and media agencies, editorial and product teams, content was a long-form article written by Daily Mail journalists supported by a panel of experts enhanced with data visualisation, including 3D graphics and featuring a symptoms checker.
Within 24 hours of launch, the ad experience, built into immersive editorial content designed around the reader to educate them about the early signs of dementia and how it slowly destroys the brain, had generated 400,000 views.
Other premium content formats launched to brand owners in recent months include Immersive Native – offering advertisers an opportunity to develop full-screen interactive image-led stories, and StoryFlow – three brand moments in one scrollable format opportunity.
Takeaways from WACL & The Apprentice
Aside from deep experience built buying media, Collins also brings to MMM insight and expertise built through her long-standing involvement with Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership (WACL) and being trusted advisor to Lord Sugar on BBC 1’s The Apprentice – she has participated in the final stage candidate interviews on the TV show for 13 years.
And both had – and continue to have – an impact on her approach.
The latter has given her a more human approach to doing business than she had when her involvement with the TV series began back in 2013, she believes.
“As the years passed, I realised how, just by talking to people as people – putting them at ease and speaking openly – you get the best out of people. With clients, I was always going to be like that; with people working for you, perhaps less so,” Collins admits.
“But with the people on The Apprentice, when I interview them, I’m talking to them openly. And after (the filming stops), often, though you don’t see it, they ask my advice and I tell them and they appreciate it.”
The former, meanwhile, has sharpened her commitment to cheerleading women who want to be tomorrow’s business and industry leaders.
“The sad fact is that, generally, women are nowhere near as confident as men and I think they need help. Because if you’re confident, people believe what you are saying. And if you’re not, people can think you’re not as good as you really are,” she says.
“I remember Stevie Spring once saying when she was young, her and a guy were called in by their boss. They were told there was an opportunity for one of them to work in Paris and asked, do you speak French? She said, No, I’ve only got O-level. He said, Yes, I’ve got O-level and got the job – even though while she got an A grade, he got a C.”
In adland and publishing, as in any business, there’s no shortcut to success – it will always take hard work, she concludes. But if good women have the confidence to take opportunities when they come, then that can only be good for them, those they work with, their employer and business generally.
This article was first published in InPublishing magazine. If you would like to be added to the free mailing list to receive the magazine, please register here.
