The San Diego Community Newspaper Group announced May 11 that it has named John M. Dowd to the newly created position of director of sales and marketing. Dowd will oversee the San Diego Community Newspaper Group sales and marketing initiatives in its five regular publications, visitor guides and websites. “The changes in the newspaper landscape are presenting an opportunity for our community newspapers. Readers and advertisers have a newfound appreciation for both editorial and advertising content that is relevant to and has value for people who live and work in our neighborhoods,” said Julie Hoisington, publisher of the San Diego Community Newspaper Group. “John has a tremendous amount of experience working with businesses in promoting their brands and helping them sell products and services by using advertising. We have created this position with the intent to aggressively grow our business base in some of the most affluent communities in the country.” Dowd said, “I am delighted to join the San Diego Community Newspaper Group at a time when the pendulum of readership and advertisers are migrating back to local content. The Internet has made it easy to get news from around the world from multiple sources. What is difficult to find is news about your neighborhood. From a marketing standpoint, people want to know where the best places to eat are and how to find value when you spend your money. We want someone to pick up our papers and find great deals in our ads for things like dry cleaning, automotive services, tires, pharmacy products, groceries, furniture — things we all use and would love to save some money on. I firmly believe that advertising is content. Our job as an information resource is to provide a lot of advertising content so our readers get recent and relevant information where the best values are.” “We have some of the best markets in the country and the means for our advertisers to reach these very valuable resident consumers,” he added. Dowd received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and started his career in advertising and marketing as business manager of The Cornell Daily Sun. Most recently, from 2001 until 2008, Dowd was the director of marketing for Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of Oahu. Previously, while in San Diego, Dowd held sales marketing management positions with 24/7 Media as the Internet advertising director for KNSD and KNBC television stations. In 1997, Dowd worked for Microsoft managing the advertising sales and marketing efforts for Microsoft’s sidewalk.com. He spent 11 years working for the then-Disney/ABC-owned publication The PennySaver, where he was a director of marketing for California, sales manager and account executive. While he was director, The PennySaver won the American Marketer of the Year award for its Business to Business Marketing Plan. Dowd also did advertising sales for The Staten Island Advance, the first Newhouse newspaper. Dowd is a former president and chairman of the board of the San Diego Ad Club and has served on the board of directors of the La Jolla YMCA and the San Diego Advertising Golf Association and served the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. San Diego Community Newspaper Group publications include: San Diego Downtown News San Diego Pets magazine Beach & Bay Press Peninsula Beacon La Jolla Village News Visitor’s Guide – Downtown San Diego, La Jolla, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and Point Loma. All papers are audited by the Circulation Verification Council (CVC), a third-party auditing firm. For more information on the San Diego Community Newspaper Group, please visit the company’s website, www.SDNews.com.