DAZN names Mayer chair of board
Kevin Mayer has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors at sports streaming platform DAZN Group. He will provide strategic direction to DAZN’s leadership team as the company continues along its aggressive growth trajectory. Previous Chairman, John Skipper, will remain on the Board and serve as a Strategic Adviser.

Mayer was previously Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and International at The Walt Disney Company. There, he launched and ran the company’s streaming businesses including Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Hotstar, as well as overseeing Disney’s global advertising sales, content sales, channels sales, and international operations. Prior to that role, Mayer served as Disney’s Chief Strategy Officer, leading the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 21^st Century Fox, and BamTech.

“As Chairman, I’m looking forward to partnering with the management team and my fellow directors to help DAZN build on its impressive track record of success in developing a truly global sports platform,” said Mayer. “Since I began working with Access Industries last year, I’ve been impressed with DAZN’s ambitions and ability to quickly grow from a new entrant to an important player in key markets throughout the world. I look forward to guiding DAZN’s strategic development into its next chapter.”

Business Director duo join DDB
DDB Worldwide, an Omnicom-owned advertising network, has hired Varsha Kaura as Global Business Director for DDB North America and Vanessa Reyes as Group Business Director for DDB New York.

Kaura will have overall responsibility of leading the cross-market teams servicing Mars Incorporated. Operating within DDB Chicago and reporting to Justin Thomas-Copeland, CEO of DDB North America, she will be responsible for strengthening Mars Incorporated global relationships across multiple geographies and individual agency offices, including adam&eveDDB, DDB Chicago, DDB Guangzhou, DDB Mudra, DDB Mexico, and DDB New York.

Kaura was previously a member of the core leadership at Motista, where she led strategy and client relations across a variety of industries.

“Varsha brings a unique mix of extensive creative agency experience combined with C-Suite management consultancy leadership in data and analytics driven strategy. We are excited for the new value creation we will bring to Mars Incorporated through data-driven creativity to further catapult their brand,” said Thomas-Copeland. “Varsha will bring her unique set of skills adding a new dimension of creative problem-solving to our clients, using data and insight to fuel our creativity for Mars Incorporated.”

Reyes will lead a broad group of client businesses, bringing a new perspective to strengthen the agency’s client relationships. She has over 15 years of experience in integrated marketing and has partnered with brands such as MetLife, Instagram, Lego, ESPN, and Verizon. Previous to this role, Reyes held the position of Group Managing Director at R/GA.

“The addition of the Vanessa to the DDB New York leadership team is the perfect manifestation of creativity and connection – both needed to drive business growth today,” said Thomas-Copeland. “Vanessa is a truly integrated thinker and business leader. She brings progressive digital-first experience, and we will marry this to the progressive business questions and expectations our clients are engaging us in. Vanessa represents the new direction and skill base of DDB NAM.”

News UK hires Cosa as Data GM
Pedro Cosa has been named as Data General Manager at News UK, the publisher behind The Sun and The Times. Reporting to Chief Operating Officer David Dinsmore, he will be responsible for driving a joined-up data vision and strategy across the whole business. He will lead the company’s Data Hub, optimising the value of data and insight, and working with senior leaders from all divisions and brands to ensure that strategic decision-making is fuelled by data.

Most recently, at Warner Media, Cosa led the transformation of a cross-platform data and intelligence function to support the company’s expansion across its portfolio of network and streaming brands in EMEA including Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, Boing, Cartoonito, HBO, and TCM.

“I’m hugely excited to be joining such a talented team at News,” said Cosa. “They have a roster of brands which sit at the heart of the national conversation, engaging millions every day. Gaining an ever-better understanding of who those millions are, how they connect with the brands and how they connect with the world will open up more opportunities for News UK, and for its commercial partners.”

Pair of senior execs join MediaCom’s US team
WPP media agency network MediaCom has recruited Liza Davidian as Executive Vice President of Investment & Activation and Yorlene Goff as Executive Director of People. Both will join the executive committee and report to Sasha Savic, US CEO of MediaCom.

Davidian will lead the agencys future-forward investment vision, including client investment strategies that are holistic in approach and united end-end with planning and analytics and adaptable to the evolving consumer landscape. Across her over 20 years in the media industry, she has worked with clients including General Mills, Clorox, SCJ, CBS, CW, Showtime, Wells Fargo, Experian, Levi Strauss & Co., Ancestry.com, and McDonalds.

Goff will lead the agency’s ‘people first’ culture, nurturing a workforce and environment where everyone feels empowered to fulfill their potential and making continued progress in creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. She joins MediaCom from Publicis Spine, where she served as Chief Talent Officer responsible for driving strategic global talent structure optimisation within the platform, technology, and data & analytics teams across brand agencies and local markets.

“Transformation and the opportunities for growth never stop – for our clients and ourselves,” said Savic. “Liza and Yorlene bring with them excellence in their craft and are both critical in our mission of working with the most ambitious clients, having the most advanced products, and cultivating the most talented workforce. Their respective contributions are vital in our Seeing the Bigger Picture vision and for MediaCom to have continued successes and growth in 2021 and beyond.”

VidMob turns to De Castro on growth
Matty de Castro has joined VidMob, a creative analytics platform, as Vice President of Growth and Operations. He will expand VidMob’s business intelligence practice and build a global sales organisation to support small and medium-sized businesses.

Prior to VidMob, De Castro spent 12 years at Facebook, most recently as Head of North American Scaled Accounts. During his tenure, he led their earliest and current monetisation programs, laying the groundwork for business growth, and helping to evolve Facebook into a dominant marketing services platform. Earlier in his career, De Castro held leadership positions at Arkadium, Pulse 360, Ticketmaster, and Citysearch, working with clients including Walmart, General Mills, Nestle, Leo Burnett, Sony, National Geographic, and 20^th Century Fox.

“For years, I’ve watched firsthand as marketers of all sizes have struggled to evolve their creative operations to keep pace with the needs of today’s opportunities,” said De Castro. “I’ve also witnessed just how impactful VidMob’s platform can be in improving advertiser efficiency and results. As creative intelligence gives rise to a new category of first-party data, VidMob’s ability to bring data and creativity together in one place is one of the most exciting developments I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m so excited to join the team and get to work.”

Garrubbo elevated to chair of board at IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has elected Gina Garrubbo as Chair of its Board of Directors.

Garrubbo, President and Chief Executive Officer of National Public Media, has served as the IAB Board’s Vice Chair since August 2020 and Co-Chair of the IAB Audio Committee since 2017. Krishan Bhatia, President & Chief Business Officer of Global Advertising Partnerships at NBCUniversal, has been elected to serve as Vice Chair.

“Having worked across different disciplines within media and marketing, I have been able to experience first-hand the vital role that IAB plays in driving the industry forward,” said Garrubbo. “There has never been a more important time to be part of IAB as the industry is going through a tremendous reset and reinvention. I look forward to working alongside IAB CEO David Cohen, the Board of Directors, and IAB members to help guide this industry forward and to continue to ensure that we create vibrant marketplaces that foster innovation and collaboration.”

LiveXLive recruits Vick to lead programming
Andy Vick has been named Head of Programming at livestream and on-demand audio platform LiveXLive, as well as Executive Vice President of the company’s newly formed content division, StudioOne. He will create and expand digitally native content to drive subscribers, sponsors, and new revenue streams across the LiveXLive flywheel.

Vick was most recently President of Virtual Reality and Immersive Entertainment at STX Entertainment. In 2015, he co-founded and was Chief Content Officer for Surreal, where over 100 VR experiences were produced under his leadership. Surreal was acquired by STX in 2016.

“LiveXLive has purposely engineered themselves for a future where talent and partners can walk right through the front door and plug directly into their comprehensive and fully integrated flywheel. From interactive live streaming to on-demand video, podcasts, digital radio, OTT apps, in-person events, and custom physical goods…they are a one-stop-shop,” Vick commented. “Everyone knows this is where the music and entertainment business is headed, and lucky for me, LiveXLive is already there.  Im humbled at the opportunity and looking forward to working with the LiveXLive team to keep pushing boundaries.”

Gorman takes seat on Samba board
Samba TV, a television data and omniscreen measurement platform, has added Jeremi Gorman to its Board of Directors.

Gorman has served as Chief Business Officer at Snap Inc. since 2018, where she is responsible for revenue and customer operations across the company. Before joining Snap, she spent several years at Amazon, most recently as Global Head of Field Sales for Amazon Advertising. Gorman also held senior advertising and sales positions at Yahoo! And Variety Magazine.

“Ever since discovering Samba TV during my time at Amazon, I have been impressed by the critical role the company plays in reinventing the television model for today’s viewer that consumes video across all screens,” said Gorman. “I am eager to work with the team and contribute my perspective to further advance its market position.”

TabMo welcomes Phillips as Non-exec Director
Ben Phillips has been appointed as mobile advertising firm TabMo’s first Non-executive Director.

Phillips has spent 17 years working in the mobile advertising space. His career-path includes five years at MediaCom as Global Head of Mobile. This was followed by the role of Vice President of Strategic Accounts at Blis, where he worked with agencies and brands direct to overcome challenges and drive return on their advertising investment. 

“With direct experience of using TabMo’s platform while at MediaCom, I have seen first-hand the reliability of its platform and the results it delivers; this is combined with a culture that actively encourages inspiration and innovation,” said Phillips. “I jumped at the opportunity to work with such a robust business during its dramatic growth and development.”

Brown takes up advisory role at TVSquared
TVSquared, a cross-platform TV ad measurement company, has announced Andy Brown as Executive Adviser. He will provide strategic counsel to TVSquared’s Board and executive team.

Brown was most recently Global Chief Executive Officer for Kantar Media. Between 2013 and 2020, he helped Kantar significantly develop its media business and played a key role in the acquisition of TNS PLC and, subsequently, the sale of its majority stake to Bain Capital. He also led the expansion of services into more than 50 markets worldwide.

“As TV viewership continues to fragment, it has never been more critical for advertisers to measure the impact of TV and reach the right audiences at scale,” said Brown. “TVSquared is the real deal – its proven, always-on platform is used by thousands of buy- and sell-side clients to measure TV how people consume it, across platforms and screens. To be armed with precise insights into optimal reach and frequency, the publishers and inventory driving performance and the audiences watching and engaging with ads is game changing for any brand.”

Malwarebytes announces Strassman as CPO
Mark Strassman has been appointed Chief Product Officer at cybersecurity platform Malwarebytes. He will lead the product teams to put a renewed emphasis on the customer, evaluate new market opportunities, and deliver solutions to unmet and unarticulated needs. His focus will centre on creating superior customer experiences across both the consumer and corporate product lines to continue to accelerate customer acquisition and retention growth.

Strassman joins Malwarebytes from LogMeIn, where he was General Manger of their Unified Communication and Collaboration product portfolio. While there, he drove growth in the core UCC business, moving from dozens of products to a single, integrated UCC platform, driving up usage, customer satisfaction, and retention rates. He also led product, design, and integrated portfolio strategy at BlueJeans, and has held leadership roles at Blackboard, Autodesk, Adobe Systems, and Macromedia.

“Malwarebytes presents a unique opportunity to help align the needs of multiple customers and be a contributor to an incredible stage of the companys growth,” said Strassman. “Im excited to join such a seasoned and accomplished executive team and help deliver a differentiated value proposition which puts our customers at the center of everything we do.”

Three elevated at MiQ
MiQ, a programmatic media partner, has announced three promotions across its senior executive management team to bolster its European expansion. Giles Ivey has been promoted to EMEA CEO, Van Sideras has been named EMEA COO, and Freddie Turner moves to the role of UK MD.

Ivey, who was previously UK CEO, joined MiQ almost three years ago having previously been a Non-executive Board Member and then Global CRO at Avid Media. Prior to this, he was UK Managing Director at Collective.

“Weve globalised in all the English-as-a-first language markets, and over the last 15 months weve entered into China and India – the second biggest and one of the fastest-growing markets in the world, respectively,” said Ivey. “Our expansion into EMEA represents the next piece in MiQ’s global story. We’ve already got a business unit in Germany and now we want to turbocharge this growth, bringing our clients and agency partners with us on this journey to new markets.”

Over the last nine years, Sideras has risen through the ranks of the trading team to be MD of the UK business. His new challenge as EMEA COO will be to bring the UK and DE teams closer together, as well as serviing and growing the EMEA business effectively from new markets over the coming years.

“With the need to reach audiences online, lockdown has accelerated the pace of programmatic adoption,” said Sideras. “In a world of uncertainty, brands and agencies are even more conscious of investments, and what they want right now is clearly measurable and trackable ROI. By harnessing data in programmatic advertising, marketers can not only optimise campaigns to deliver the best results, but use this insight to tackle wider business challenges.”

Turner will lead MiQ’s UK business into a period of continued growth and opportunity. She joined MiQ from Agenda 21 over two years ago and has been pivotal in the evolution of MiQ’s product story, worked closely as a lead with MiQ’s data scientists, engineers, and analysits in Bengalura, and advanced its omnichannel and cookieless offering. With her move to UK MD, Turner will also take a leading role in MiQ’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and corporate social responsibility in the UK.

“As we all move towards a post-cookie world, advertisers need to look at new ways to plan and deliver campaigns without relying on cookie-level data,” commented Turner. “In my new role, I’m excited to spearhead this major shift, defining and launching a full suite of omnichannel programmatic and futureproofed solutions to deliver tangible results for key holding companies, independent agencies and brands alike. MiQ’s expertise is using data to drive insight and as we expand into new markets, our clients will gain access to even more insight that can drive more measurable business outcomes for their whole corporation – it’s an extremely interesting time for the industry.”

Impact makes host of hires and promotions
Partnership automation company Impact has made a number of new hires amid the continued expansion of its EMEA team.

Alex Springer has been promoted to Regional VP, EMEA Sales & Solutions Architects; James Bennie to Senior Director, Customer Success; Sam Crocker to Director, Mid-Market & SMB Sales; and Matthew Sheppard and Smita Pillai to Customer Success Director roles; while Bharat Siyani has been promoted to Director, Global HR; Alex Gordon to Associate, Channel Partnerships Development; and Ana Santos, Associate, Solutions Architect.

Clara Mantegazza and Dayo Ojo are hired in Business Development roles, whilst Patrick Chancelier joins as Account Executive, Strategic Enterprise.

“Our diverse and world-class team will be working with customers and partners across a range of markets at a time when brands are beginning to grasp the power of partnerships,” said Florian Gramshammer, MD EMEA at Impact. “By scaling and growing our team in this way we can better meet market demand for our Partnership Cloud technology and continue to innovate and optimise our offering.”

Nixon and Levy join Adnami
Ad platform Adnami has hired Kathryn Nixon as Publisher Partnerships Manager and Sam Levy as Commercial Activation Manager.

Nixon is tasked with looking after publisher relationships in the UK, growing the business by dipping into her extensive network. She will lead service activation, delivery and training with top tier publishers in the UK. Her most recent role was at PapayaMobile, where she worked across a number of projects including the launch of a new eCommerce platform as Business Consultant. Prior to this, Nixon held the position of Head of B2B at Encore Digital Media and managed multi-million-pound accounts at Reach PLC, having started her career in Account Management at City AM.

“I can’t wait to support publishers, agencies and brands in creating and delivering a better, more efficient advertising ecosystem,” said Nixon.

Levy will work with Adnami’s partners during the onboarding process; ensure campaigns exceed expectations; and focus on nurturing new accounts and growing existing relationships. She was most recently at Flashtalking, and has worked with a range of clients including P&G, Paddy Power, Visa, and Kia.

“Adnami is pioneering uniquely high impact campaigns, and I can’t wait to help more clients enjoy astonishing ad experiences and accelerated return on investment,” commented Levy.

Kyra looks to head up US sales
Kelsey Arnold has been appointed Head of US Sales at Gen Z-focused media company Kyra Media. She is responsible for creating activations, campaigns and initiatives for brands looking for creative ways to engage with Gen Z.

Most recently, Arnold served as director of brand partnerships at Apartment Therapy Media, working with leading food brands, CPG products, and major national retailers across platforms, including the Kitchn. Arnold previously led brand partnerships for various emerging players in the media landscape in both the B2B and B2C space, including Social Media Today. Her early career began at IBM on the sales and marketing team, supporting client relationship initiatives like the Women in Leadership program and CIO summits.

Four join Dept
Dept, a digital agency, has welcomed four female digital experts across marketing, project management, design, and user experience.

Lavinia Alexoiu has been named as a Senior UX Designer, joining after three years at Mancester’s Accenture Interactive, where she worked as Senior Product Designer and a UX Designer.

Ali Marler arrives as a Designer, arriving from The Drawing Room in Manchester with four years of experience working in creative agencies.

Senior Marketing Manager Alexandra Moorhouse worked for Manchester Central, I-COM and, most recently, MIDAS (Manchester’s Inward Investment Agency). She has eight years of experience in marketing and communications and will be responsible for delivering Dept’s sector-focused strategies and campaigns with core competencies in content creation and event management.

Dept has also welcomed Jo Warrilow into the role of Service Delivery Executive within its DOS (Digital Operations Services) team where she coordinates projects, manages resources and ensures the smooth running of day-to-day operations. Warrilows seven-year professional track record involves business support and project coordination for Mercer, WYG Group, and Breast Cancer Care.

“We’re delighted to welcome this talented group of women to Dept, especially on International Women’s Day. Women are having a massive, positive impact on the future of our industry and we’re seeing that right now, here at Dept,” said Melissa Hermitt, Operations Director at Dept UK.

Lycamobile names Turner as EVP
Phil Turner has joined mobile virtual network operator Lycamobile as Executive Vice President of Professional Channel Sales. He will play a crucial role in supporting Lycamobile’s expansion plans, taking on responsibility for the overall productivity and effectiveness of Lycamobile’s channel sales. He will work closely with key internal and external stakeholders to enhance existing revenue streams and develop new ones in national markets.

Turner joins Lycamobile with over 30 years’ experience and has implemented vital strategies at companies including Payzone, the Post Office, and Travelex. As Head of Retail Proposition at Payzone (part of Post Office), he was responsible for the delivery of a new commission and pricing structure, delivery of a business banking partnership with Cashplus, setting up a Retailer Forum, as well as introducing a new customer experience process to more than 12,500 retail locations and reducing transaction times by 30 per cent.

“We’re pleased to announce Phil’s appointment as our Executive Vice President of Professional Channel Sales,” said Navanit Narayan, Lycamobile’s Group Chief Operating Officer. “He brings with him not only experience, but an unparalleled knowledge, flair, and expertise for supporting and handling stakeholder relations.”

Humphries-French takes charge of marketing at Never.no
Never.no, an audience engagement platform, has named Alex Humphries-French as its Head of Marketing & Communications. He will support Never.no’s strategy in growing brand reach and strengthen industry partnerships with collaborative events throughout the year.

Humphries-French joins from Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, where he was a Senior Account Manager. He has previously worked for Rotolight as their PR & Marketing Lead, managed campaigns for Avid, and built personal brand for actors in film & TV.

“I’m excited to join Never.no during a time of innovation across the industry. We’re seeing huge changes in the way the audience is consuming content, as broadcast, digital, social and brand content providers look to create new ways to connect with a growing audience,” said Humphries-French. “I’m delighted to be leading the marketing and comms for a company that has a huge opportunity for growth, particularly with our audience engagement platform, Bee-On and the team’s first-rate industry expertise – I can’t wait to get stuck in and collaborate with established partners and clients, such as Vizrt, ITV, and Sky.”

Heap makes executive reshuffle
Effective 2 April, Ken Fine assumes the position of Chief Executive Officer at digital product analytics company Heap, as CEO and Co-founder Matin Movassate transitions into a full-time role as Chairman of the Board. Heap has expanded its product and engineering leadership bench as well, adding Rachel Obstler as VP of Product and David Fullerton as VP of Engineering.

“Heap is coming off a record year of growth executing against its product vision and has never been in a better position to accelerate into our next stage. A recognized leader who’s made a career out of driving company growth and pushing the envelope toward what’s next, Ken is the ideal person to take this company forward into its next decade. I couldn’t have found a more trusted advisor to lead Heap,” said Movassate.

“In a world where digital experiences are your product, digital product analytics are a critical tool for gathering data, surfacing powerful insights, and taking meaningful action on them,” added Fine. “I’m thrilled to continue to build on the amazing work Matin has already put in to advance this mission of putting product data in the hands of teams everywhere, and am elated that we’ll have Rachel and David helping grow our game-changing product.”

The post Movers and Shakers: DAZN, DDB, News UK, MediaCom, VidMob, and more appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The product offers video capabilities for brands who want to reach The Times and The Sunday Times’ digital audiences on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

The first campaign has seen The Bridge create a virtual e-shopping format, called Shop With Style, for Estée Lauder to support its Futurist Hydra Rescue Moisturizing Makeup SPF45. The seven-minute video, on The Sunday Times Style YouTube channel, features UK pro makeup artist for Estée Lauder Emma Tillman sharing makeup tips via Zoom with Sarah Jossel, Beauty Director at The Sunday Times’ Style magazine. There has also been a 90-second edit shared on Style’s Facebook and Instagram pages to drive traffic to the YouTube video.

“Shop With Style is the perfect platform for us to showcase our latest products to The Sunday Times Style’s large off-platform audience. The team behind The Times Social Studio has been a brilliant partner in ensuring high-quality video production despite social distancing and we’re excited to reach existing and new Estée Lauder customers via Style’s social channels.”

The post Estée Lauder debuts News UKs latest branded social video product appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

News Corp is to offload video advertising platform Unruly to Tremor International for substantially less than the £58m it reportedly paid to acquire it in 2015, according to Sky News.

In its own announcement of the deal, Tremor said that in return for the business, News Corp will be issued with 6.91 per cent of Tremor International’s stock, subject to an 18-month lockup period. Tremor has also entered into a global partnership with News Corp that will give Tremor with the exclusive rights to sell outstream video on more than 50 News Corp titles in the UK, US and Australia. Under the terms of the Transaction, Tremor International has committed to an ad spend of £30 million with News Corp over a three-year period. News Corp has also agreed to contribute cash towards the cost of integrating Unruly with the company.

It also confirmed that Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News UK, the News Corp subsidiary which publishes The Times and The Sun, will join the board of Tremor as a non-executive director. Norman Johnston, CEO of Unruly, will also join Tremor’s board.

Tremor said the deal is directly in-line with the company’s three-pillared strategy to grow by leveraging video, data and Connected TV (CTV). It said the acquisition will significantly extend its international footprint, and present an opportunity to accelerate the global roll-out of Tremor’s recently acquired RhythmOne assets, while adding an additional 1.2bn unique monthly users through premium publisher partnerships across the US, Europe and APAC.

“This transaction is another important milestone in Tremor’s transformation into a leading video advertising business,” said Tremor CEO, Ofer Druker. “We are delighted to be acquiring a truly world class asset in Unruly, but equally important is the formation of our new strategic alliance with News Corp, which will provide Tremor access to globally recognised media brands, in a partnership we believe to be mutually beneficial for both companies.

“In addition, not only does this transaction deliver a number of commercial opportunities for the Company, but it is a significant endorsement of Tremor as a business, given the reputation of News Corp globally.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said: “The sale of Unruly marks an important step in our strategy of simplification at News Corp, while we expect it to yield ongoing financial benefits. We look forward to partnering with Tremor and are grateful to Unruly and its truly talented team, who have helped our businesses in the UK, US and Australia advance their digital advertising expertise.”

Alex Rahaman, chairman of creative management platform Nexd, said the deal is not a major surprise. He said: “I think NewsUK were hoping to bring transferrable programmatic and digital video expertise into the business with the acquisition of Unruly. Unruly is a very successful ad network working on high margins in a very efficient way. But Unruly wasn’t built to consult with or transfer skills to much larger corporates and I think there was left the feeling that what they bought wasn’t quite what they hoped for. So it is no surprise they will spin it out to a much closer fit business in Tremor.”

Another ad tech industry veteran said the deal looks better for Tremor than for Unruly. He said: “This seems like a good deal for Tremor and not necessarily for Unruly. I suspect Unruly were trying to make the transition from an IO (insertion order)-based business to a programmatic exchange model and that needs quite a lot of investment. News were probably happy to take the cash and get a loss-making business off their hands.”

The post News Corp offloads Unruly to Tremor International appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Lucozade has launched a long-form video series aimed at celebrating positive energy featuring some of the UK’s biggest names in culture, including Anthony Joshua, Maya Jama, Wretch32, James McVey, Florence Given, and Charly Cox. The energy and sport drink brand worked with The Fifth, News UK’s influencer marketing agency, to bring the campaign to life.

The #PositiveChain video series will see the featured influencers provide their tips for staying positive. They will focus on the themes of ‘inherited advice’, ‘lessons learnt the hard way’, and ‘what they’d like to pass on’.

Each of the videos features a pair of influencers, with one interviewing the other. At the end of the interview, the interviewee opens a bottle of Lucozade Energy to reveal the person that they’ll be interviewing, creating that ‘positive chain’.

The campaign will run for five weeks from now across Lucozade’s and the influencers’ YouTube and IGTV channels.

 “This is a collaborative effort in every sense,” said Zoe Trimble, head of marketing at Lucozade Energy. “Our brilliant talent collaborates in a chain of uplifting positivity, while we, as a brand team partnered with our in-house TED team and The Fifth to create engaging long-form content.”

The Fifth worked with Lucozade Ribena Suntory’s in-house creative team, TED, to develop the campaign strategy through to creative execution. This work involved selecting a group of influencers who resonate strongly with the Gen Z target audience while also complementing each other.

“We’re exceptionally proud of this joint production where we’ve picked talent with influence – not just influencers – to create content that rivals the tone and quality of popular podcasts that abound in today’s culture,” said Daniel Lee, lead comms planner at TED team, Lucozade Ribena Suntory. “We felt passionate about delivering something substantive on the subject of positivity that we know our target market will actively enjoy and choose to engage with.”

The post Lucozade wants to inspire positivity with its latest influencer campaign appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Audience segmentation and profiling is a key battleground for mobile marketers as personalisation continues to grow in importance in the industry.

Tabloid news publisher The Sun is using audience segmentation and profiling tech to see a more detailed picture of its audience following a period of online growth since its paywall was removed four years ago in 2015.

Monetisation strategy
Digital marketing director (interim) of The Sun, Paul Hood, spoke at DigiTech Day London on Thursday 28 March about the techniques and tools that it is implementing to know its audience so it can monetise more effectively.

90 per cent of The Sun online readers browse on mobile, possibly because of the papers’ late entry to desktops browsing and its paywall (removed in 2015) which originally deterred desktop visits.

Games and quizzes driving engagement
To drive engagement and personalisation, the Sun has created and delivered daily content related quizzes and predictor games on web and mobile to deepen reader engagement and increase the number of page views per visit. If someones done a quiz you will know their age, gender and what their interests are so you can then feed that back to advertisers. So the next time they visit the advertising will be more relevant, he says.

Hood also shared the difference of average page views between an off-platform user, a registered user and a user being fed personalised content on its apps.

The Suns data on page views per customer segment

The Sun uses NewsUKs data ad platform NewsIQ which aggregates all its audience data and allows advertisers to target users based on three data points – preference, opinion and emotion. This could be anything from their opinion on Brexit to their favourite footballer in the Premier League, which it discovers by giving readers to option to react using an emotion, a la Facebook.

Hood says his priorities for 2019 will be to continue segmenting and profiling the 30m people who read The Sun each month. 

“Were looking to introduce a much broader suite of paid and registration proposals across on The Sun for the year ahead.  Well continue to develop digital journies for some of our most well-loved and popular franchises, like Holidays from £9.50, as well as introducing new propositions. For example, just last month we launched Sun Racing, a destination for Horse racing fans that combines best in class content with betting opportunities”.

Once a user is logged in and is receiving personalised advertising, the Sun will push offers from partners such as energy switcher Switchcraft which, if successful will mean revenue for the Sun in transaction fees.

“Logged in users are worth twice as much than non-logged in users,” says Hood.

Case study: The Sun Racing

To secure a valuable customer onto the app, Hood used the customer journey of:

• An unknown Googles Cheltenham runners & riders and clicks on a Sun story organically.
• The Sun uses Tealium and KRUX tags to track user. They read two articles about horse racing and leave.
• User is spotted on Facebook next day and is targeted with five pages on Sun Racing content teasers using LiveRamp, NewsIQ and KRUX tags and they click on the article (s).
• Reader reads an article about the Cheltenham Festival and completes a poll about the top three horses and enters email for a free £2.50 bet. Qualtrics, Voice of the Fan and Wayin powers this exchange.
• The Sun then emails a code and link for a free bet which is offered to be doubled if done through the Sun racing app.
• The user then installs the app and become a known and therefore marketable.

This process can make a user up to 180 times for valuable than if they had just read an article and left the site without being tracked.

He adds: “We see it that theres always got to be a value exchange so well only seek additional information from people if it improves the experience that we can offer them.”

He also spoke of the importance of first-party data to marketers which has consent from consumers because of Apples recent decision to prevent cross-site tracking on its Safari browser.

Watch the below video on personalised marketing

The post The Suns digital marketing director on audience segmentation and profiling appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The agency, called ‘The Fifth, has been setup to offer talent identification and management, storytelling strategy, creative production, cross media amplification, and events.

“Influencer marketing is one of the most exciting and fast-growing areas in brand communication. But the space is still in its infancy and with any industry in rapid growth, challenges persist,” said Oliver Lewis, managing director and founder of The Fifth. “Brands require more support identifying the right talent, building longer-term partnerships, authenticating their background, proving meaningful ROI and delivering authentic and diverse stories.”

Rather than segmenting influencers into micro, macro, and celebrity categories, The Fifth has instead identified ‘nine faces of influence’ to help brands connect with the right people to represent them. These faces are: The Artist, The Humourist, The Collective, The Enthusiast, The Tastemaker, The Journalist, The Expert, The Host, and The Cosmopolitan.

“The Fifth helps brands elevate influencer marketing into multi-channel campaigns,” said Lewis. “We believe in a human-first approach to talent identification. We immerse ourselves in cultural trends and we build connections with the tribes defining them to help brands join the conversation at the right time and in the most genuine way.”

The Fifth is partnering with CORQ, an influencer intelligence platform, for its talent selection strategy and will also work with the business to ‘discover, nurture, and invest’ in the next wave of social talent.

The post News UK sets up influencer marketing agency appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Two new senior roles have been created as a result of the changes. Ben Walmsley, previously digital commercial director of The Bridge, will step into the newly created role of commercial director of publishing, expanding his remit to include News UK’s print propositions. Walmsley’s team will include Owen Griffiths and Caroline Tredget, sales directors of The Sun and The Times respectively, who have expanded their roles to lead combined print and digital teams under their brands.

The second new role is the head of a new Strategic Development Team which will work across the business to create consistency and clarity in News UK’s commercial proposition to advertisers. Louise Crosby, currently digital sales director for The Bridge, takes on this role. Oliver Williams, now head of commercial product, is also expanding his remit, working in partnership with Crosby to determine and own product direction and delivery as part of the new Strategic Development Team. Both Crosby and Williams will report to Ben Walmsley.

“A little under three years ago we set out to change the structure of the commercial side of the business and launched The Bridge with a vision to connect brands with our engaged audiences,” said Dominic Carter, group chief commercial officer for News UK. “Since then, our work is winning more awards and we have realised our ambition to bring together the company’s data, creativity and insight resources. Today we’re more than a trusted news brand; we’re a multi-platform media, technology and data business, that when put together, can offer advertisers something that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The post News UK brings print and digital teams together appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

We chatted to the IAB’s Mobile Steering Group, in particular, Factual, Telegraph Media Group, Ogury, Waze, Celtra and News UK, to gather their thoughts on this key question:

“In terms of the digital advertising industry, what did 2018 mean for you and what do you expect 2019 has in store for our industry?”

Brian Czarny, CMO at Factual
“Access to the right data creates new advertising opportunities to bring consumers back to brick-and-mortar, which we’ll see more of in 2019. Recent resurgences, like REIs #OptOutside campaign, combined out-of-home and mobile ads with location data, driving 3.5 times more store visits; Renault saw a 15 per cent increase in dealership visits with location-powered mobile ads. I also expect location data to be leveraged more for brick-and-mortar pop-ups — an experience that can’t be replicated online.”

Paul de la Nougerede, senior director commercial products at Telegraph Media Group
“2018 was the year when the issues of trust, transparency, and privacy really hit the spotlight. Whilst tackling government legislation around GDPR the industry also came together to launch the IAB Gold Standard and publishers collaborated in ways never seen before with the creation of The Ozone Project. Both of these initiatives point to a rosier future for all involved.”

Adam Rubach, managing director UK at Ogury
“As the marker for the beginning of the GDPR era, 2018 was the year that marketers had to face the reality of acting with transparency over how consumer data is collected and used. The Wild West days of data collection are over. Customers today expect clarity over their data usage, and going into next year, only the most responsible providers will be in a position to secure their trust and reap the associated business results.”

Finlay Clark, UK country manager at Waze
“Transparency across the industry has been a continued theme of 2018; customers want to know how their data is being used, clients need to know where their ads are showing, and post-GDPR there is a shift to premium publishers who own the relationship with the customer.  The context the ad appears in has greater value in this world, which is a good thing, as theres more to advertising than perfect targeting.  

“In 2019 we’re hoping that we see more creativity, especially on mobile, and this comes from creative, media and technology people working closer together to bring advertising experiences that add to, and doesn’t detract from the experience itself.”

Lolly Mason, VP media partnerships EMEA at Celtra Inc
“In future, I believe we’ll look back and see this as a significant time in our industry’s evolution. For too long, immediate ROI trumped quality and the industry is now mid-seismic shift with every aspect of quality taking centre stage: creativity, relevance, UX, transparency, integrity. This will develop further in 2019 with a focus on driving quality at scale – more advertising must become better, for instance through creative automation and ‘baked in’ quality in programmatic platforms.”

Milton Elias, head of mobile & video at News UK
“2018 has been a year of growth for the UK digital advertising industry, with video being the largest driver (40 per cent year-on-year investment increase according to IAB/PwC). As mobile screens continue to claim the lion’s share of digital media consumption and content is watched across more devices and platforms, digital video ad investment will surely increase in the year ahead. Consistent measurement solutions and trusted quality content creators/environments will be essential in building sustained advertiser confidence.”

The post Digital advertising: Where we stand and what to expect in 2019 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Keith Weed named as president of Advertising Association
Keith Weed, the chief marketing and communications officer of Unilever, is taking on the role of president of the Advertising Association. A loud voice for transparency and accountability in the digital marketing space, Weed will serve as president from 1 September onwards, when current president Andy Duncan, CEO of Travelopia, completes his tenure.

As president, Weed will guide the strategic direction of the Association’s work as it partners with brands, marketers, government agencies and more to showcase UK advertising to the world. Weed will work alongside the Association’s chairman, James Murphy of Adam&Eve DDB, and chief executive Stephen Woodford to head up a council of industry leaders from media owners, agencies and brands that collectively shape the voice of advertising.

As the top marketing executive at the world’s second largest advertising, Weed is responsible for Unilever’s marketing, communications and sustainable business functions, a role which has seen him lead the creation of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and direct significant advances in digital marketing and through Unilever’s #Unstereotype initiative. He was named ‘World’s Most Influential CMO’ by Forbes in 2017 and 2018, and ‘Global Marketing of the Year’ by the World Federation of Advertisers.

“It’s an honour to take on the role of president of the Advertising Association at such an exciting time for the industry,” said Weed. “I look forward to working with Stephen and the team to continue to build trust in advertising and cultivate world-class talent across the UK.”

Pure360 announces Mark Ash as new CEO
Marketing automation suite Pure360 has unveiled Mark Ash as its new CEO, taking over from Stuart Dawson, who moves on to become non-executive director for several companies. With 20 years’ experience in digital marketing technology, Ash will play a pivotal role in the development of Pure360’s core platform as well as helping clients reach new levels of marketing performance.

Ash joins Pure360 having held a number of senior leadership roles, most recently as global vice president of services at conversion platform Yieldify. Prior to this, he served as UK general manager and senior vice president of digital marketing services at Mapp Digital, and managing director of Teradata Interactive. He began his career at DoubleClick during the early days of digital advertising and has also led the growth of a number of digital marketing business units.

“I am incredibly excited to be leading Pure360 at such an important time in the company’s history,” said Ash. “I share, alongside the fantastic Pure360 team, a commitment to help clients succeed in the rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape. My goal is to put our customers in the position to be the best they can be, by harnessing our innovation technology solutions and services, enabling them to exceed their marketing goals.”

“There couldn’t be a better time for Pure360 to hire someone like Mark and I’m excited we were able to attract such impressive talent,” said David Kelly, chairman of Pure360. “Mark has a vast experience in the digital marketing space and this will be invaluable as we deepen the relationshsips with our existing customers and further develop the platform and services offering. Helping clients achieve marketing results has been central to the DNA of Pure360 and Mark has a proven track record in achieving this throughout his career.”

Diane Perlman appointed CMO at Blis
Location data technology firm Blis has revealed a new chief marketing officer in the form of Diane Perlman, an industry veteran who will oversee the company’s global marketing strategy. An established marketing leader with big brand, startup, scaleup and agency-side experience, Perlman comes to Blis after having spent the last nine months as Interim CMO at video ad tech company Unruly.

Perlman previously led the UK marketing communications for Windows Phone at Microsoft and later created and ran the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, graduating nearly 40 startups. She was subsequently the chief marketing officer at global startup accelerator MassChallenge. Her appointment at Blis comes off the heels of US growth for the firm, where the division is on track to more than triple year-on-year revenue in 2018.

“I am very impressed with Blis and its mission to provide transparency to brands through its proprietary data and insights verification platform in a post-GDPR world,” said Perlman. “It’s super exciting to be joining Blis at such a big milestone in their US growth, and I look forward to leveraging my expertise to help scale the business further both in the US and globally.”

News Corps’ Storyful makes Ben Berkowitz editor-in-chief
Ben Berkowitz is coming on board Storyful, News Corps’ social-media driven news organisation, as the firm’s new editor-in-chief, replacing Mandy Jenkins. Berkowitz was previously vice president of digital at WNBC, and has two decades of news experience with NBC, Thomson Reuters, the Associated Press and more.

Berkowitz will take over responsibility for Storyful’s global editorial operation in August, driving long-term strategy and maintaining day-to-day oversight of Storyful’s newsroom, including offices in Dublin, New York, London, Hong Kong and Sydney. He will also lead new initiatives such as News Intelligence, the company’s investigative research service for newsrooms, and training programs designed to combat misinformation on social media for the world’s largest media companies.

“I’m thrilled to be joining a team on the cutting edge of data-driven projects while also maintaining a top-rate, globally recognised standard for its journalism,” said Berkowitz. “I can’t wait to learn more about the business and begin working with all of our great partners.”

Publicis Media makes two promotions, strengthening UK leadership
Sue Frogley, CEO of Publicis Media, has unveiled two key promotions to her UK leadership team with immediate effect, with Mark Howley assuming the newly created role of chief operating officer for Publicis Media UK and Natalie Cummins stepping up to become CEO at Zenith UK, having held the title of managing director since 2015.

Cummins, who joined Zenith as part of the firm’s graduate programme, has held a series of senior roles at the agency, and has worked across an impressive roster of clients including RBS, Coty, BA, Costa and O2. Howley will work closely with Frogley, with his new role focusing on growing client business by creating even greater collaboration between the agency brands and practices, as well as driving the overall business performance of Publicis Media.

“Mark has done a superb job at Zenith UK with a retention and organic growth rate record that is second to none,” said Frogley. “In the eight months we have worked together we have collaborated well and he deserves this promotion – his strategic acumen, and business sense will ensure our practices are fully primed to deliver against our agency requirements and client opportunities. I am also delighted to appoint Natalie to this important role as Zenith CEO. Natalie is well respected by clients and media owners alike. In this significant 30th year for Zenith, Natalie will take the lead in developing this iconic agency brand for further and future success as it unlocks its ROI+ proposition for clients.”

The post Movers & Shakers: Advertising Association, Pure360, Blis, Storyful and Publicis Media appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

As you’d expect, the 2018 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity featured many product announcements from across the advertising and marketing space. One of which was the unveiling of the NewsIQ product from major publisher News UK.

The NewsIQ product is aimed at helping advertisers to target audiences based on their emotions and attitudes. The technology is able to capture the preferences, emotional state, and opinions of the audiences across all of News’s digital platforms. And this is data that News has been sitting on for years through offerings like the Sunday Times Wine Club, Sun Savers, and Sun £9.50 holidays, according to Ben Walmsley, digital commercial director at News UK.

“We realised that we never really brought it all together,” he said. “We had lots of data assets, but they were all quite fragmented and maybe we weren’t as deliberate in the past as we are now around data. So, this preference, opinion, and emotion which we’ve anchored our IQ data product around is going to sit at the core of our business. It’s codifying what we’re trying to do when we’re collecting data and the other part of it is identifying where these pockets of data are around the business… There’s all these pockets of things that exist around the business and structuring it is a big challenge, but we’ve done that now.”

Despite having all this data at its disposal, it wasn’t a quick process for News to put together the IQ product.

The publisher put “about nine months of hard work” into both building the platform and structuring the vast amounts of data at its disposal – with this work coming from right across the business in its commercial, editorial, technology, and marketing departments.

“First, we had to decide what the data is that we want to collect then build the frontend, the interface, and then structure the data in a way you can query it,” said Walmsley.

With any form of data targeting solution, the safety of the audiences has to be taken into account and it’s the responsibility of both the publisher and the advertiser to ensure people are protected.

For instance, one of the criteria that the IQ solution can target based upon is somebody’s enjoyment of gambling through the publisher’s Sun Bets gambling site. Although, News assures that it’s not “saying at that point we would target someone to gamble irresponsibly,” insisted Walmsley.

“I think with any targeting it needs to be used responsibly and that’s our responsibility as much as it is the responsibility of the advertiser… There’s lots of different data you can infer from someone’s preferences,” he continued. “For example, that person likes sport or age, gender, demographic types of interests. Someone who likes gambling, you may be able to infer that they also like other types of content that might be less obvious – like, perhaps, forms of male lifestyle content. I think the thing with it is that it yields surprises when we start to dig into people’s content consumption patterns, which we tend to make assumptions around.”

Now, with any mention of an ad product, questions arise surrounding ad fraud. In News’s case, these questions tend to arise around domain spoofing particularly.

Back in January, News revealed that it had discovered that domain spoofing was costing marketers around £700,000 each month on its newspaper brands.

This discovery was made during a two-hour test, where the publisher made it impossible to buy any programmatic inventory on its sites. As a result of the test, it was found that 2.9m bids per hour were made on fake inventory alleging to come from The Sun and The Times.

News has seen that the introduction of ads.txt “all but eradicate domain spoofing as long as the buyer is insisting on it,” claimed Walmsley.

“If publishers have it and buyers insist on it, that’s one problem that goes away,” he said. “But fraud is not going to go away because there’s always going to bad people – this is a massive multi-billion-dollar industry – and it’s relatively easy to get away with pretty significant crime and not be detected, compare to robbing one of these nice shops down here. It’s always going to attract bad practice. But, on the specific topic of domain spoofing, we’ve seen a significant drop.”

At the same time, despite News seemingly having addressed its problems, Walmsley is still of the belief “that for reputable players in the industry it’s about collaboration and helping each other to identify where the fraud exists and what they can do about, rather than blaming each other which has been the case in certain instances”.

Since revealing – and seemingly sorting out – its problems around domain spoofing, News has introduced the Social Amp ad product, which “does ensure brand safety particularly”.

The advertising tool, designed to address Facebook’s news feed changes, enables brands to take their social content and amplify it across The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times’ online platforms and social channels.

“It solves the immediacy issue – if you want to get something out there, you can do it right now because you’ve probably already got that, you’ve posted it from your own account,” said Walmsley. “But you can put it in a more premium environment which is going to be better for brand building, better for building that emotional loyalty and taking the value of context than a social environment, which is a transient direction of thoughts from friends and whatever you’re following.”

Walmsley added that we can NewsIQ to be integrated into Social Amp and all of the publisher’s ad products – with even an eye on potentially using the platform to inform print advertising in the future.

“Wherever possible, from an activation perspective, you can’t unfortunately buy print at an impression level and deliver it in the same way you can digital performance, but we would integrate with digital audio and the Wireless Group, we would integrate it with Unruly, we would integrate it with all of our platforms,” he said.

Looking ahead, News is in talks with advertisers over launch partnerships for its NewsIQ product – though it’s unable to disclose the names that we could potentially see utilising the product in the near future.

What we can be sure of is that IQ will form the centre of the publisher’s ad business and the vast majority of its efforts in the near future will be focused on getting the best possible data and targeting opportunities for advertisers.

“We’re going to put a lot of energy into IQ, so I think our focus is going to be on building and iterating on IQ. I think, we don’t know at this stage, but I think what the world doesn’t need is more formats – as in things in different shapes and sizes,” said Walmsley. “Should IQ inform where formats are placed and what type of formats we use? The answer is absolutely. We’ll continue to refine our ads and the placement of them but, with IQ itself, I think there’s a lot more we can do to make that product stronger.

“This becomes the engine at the heart of the entire advertising business that gives us the insight to be able to plan and activate across all of News Corp’s properties to really understand what motivates our readers, what interests them, what their preferences, opinions, and emotions are. To have that level of insight, it can then be applied to all of our media channels and it becomes the core of the advertising proposition,” concluded Walmsley.

The post Smart advertising – News UK on its intelligent ad product unveiled at Cannes Lions appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.