Second Street Promotions Hall of Fame: Inaugural Class

Rebecca Capparelli

Gannett

Rebecca is the Vice President of Promotions at Gannett and has been a force to be reckoned with since day one. Rebecca and her team have dug in and curated replicable programs that now run across multiple markets, including an incredible Best Of program that they now have down to a science, generating enormous revenue for their company. She also oversees countless national campaigns year after year that continuously smash revenue records and lead to advertiser retention records. Over the past 9 years, she has grown Gannett’s promotions program into a $30MM business – and we know she won’t stop there.

Each year, as Rebecca leads her team to overachieve their goals, she solidifies herself as a master of thought leadership and innovation with promotions.

Deb Williams

Federated Media

Deb is the General Manager of Digital Sales at Federated Media and is a true promotions champion. Year after year we see creative and captivating campaigns from Deb and the Federated Media team that deliver major value for their clients. She has not only adopted incredible best practices and invested her time and resources in driving results, but she’s engaged with and trained her team to grow their program to seven figures!

Deb and her team have put a strong focus on cultivating an engaged email database, driving results from each promotion and implementing a solid follow-up and renewal strategy for clients and account executives, which we know will only lead to record breaking retention and revenue for the Federated Media team.

Diana Dionisio

Nexstar

Diana is the Director of Sponsorship Solutions with Nexstar, and since day one Diana has been a lover of promotions. Diana embodies the Second Street spirit of promotions and is a true advocate of the value and power promotions can deliver for her clients. She continues to lead her team to achieve their goals with her scalable solutions and trailblazing ideas.

No sooner does Diana create a new ‘franchise’ promotion that can be sold again and again – she comes up with another, and then another. With a stacked content calendar of promotions and theme weeks around her station’s programming, Diana provides the growing sales team at WGN-TV (Chicago) plenty of opportunities to knock on clients’ doors.

Sam Cunningham

The Pilot

Sam is the Digital Promotions Sales Manager at The Pilot and is THE epitome of best practices and continuous learning. Sam attends virtually every webinar put on by Second Street, takes those ideas and puts them into action, turning them into gold (or rather, revenue). The Pilot didn’t always have an amazing Best Of program. Sam doubled down and launched their first Best Of which has since skyrocketed to huge success that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

She’s also grown other programs, like their recurring revenue photo contests, for the entire media company, building a robust strategy across all their products. If you want to see success at your media company – get yourself a SAM – but not this Sam, because the team at The Pilot knows they have one in a million!

Vince Jonson

The Sumter Item & Gulf Coast Media

Vince is the Group Publisher at The Sumter Item & Gulf Coast Media. He has created some of the best success stories and replicable campaigns that we still use as case studies today. He wrote the book on how to run a great Best Of, and still iterates on that strategy to drive growth year after year.

Vince even took it one step further and built an extremely successful Athlete of the Week recurring revenue program that their entire community looks forward to and drives huge revenue for their company. Vince will always have a special place in Second Street hearts because he was an early adopter and an early success story.