Immediate Media Co, the special interest content and platform company, has announced the appointment of Cath Waller as MD of Advertising. Waller will have overall responsibility for Immediate’s entire commercial team, across Sales, Creative & Content, Social, AdTech, Planops, Commercial Data and Insight, and will report to Immediate Platforms CEO, Sean Cornwell. Waller has held senior sales leadership positions for almost 20 years and has been with Immediate since its formation in 2011, most recently as Commercial Director of Immediate’s content studio Imagine, which she launched in 2016. Under her leadership, Imagine has established its reputation as one of the leading in-house studios in the industry, winning multiple awards, and significantly growing revenues year-on-year.
MiQ has hired John Thomson as Chief Revenue Officer of the UK business. Formerly Commercial Director at Quantcast, Thomson will lead the unified commercial strategy – overseeing key relationships with strategic partners and working closely to ensure top-line revenue for the UK market. Thomson began his media career in 2010 at talkSPORT, working in the sponsorship and promotions team. From there, he moved to Yahoo!, and began to specialise in digital media sales. In 2014, Thomson joined Quantcast, where he stayed for nine years. As MiQ continues to grow through attracting and retaining the top UK talent, the company has also appointed Clare Beddow as Head of Commercial Strategy for the UK business. Beddow’s remit is predicated on building and fostering meaningful and sustainable agency partnerships. She will focus on ways to support agencies through enhancing their proprietary offerings, delivering world-class performance and achieving their sustainability goals. With almost 20 years of experience in the media industry, Beddow has worked across a variety of disciplines for companies such as Channel 5, Global Radio, Microsoft/AOL/Verizon and most recently Spotify, where she worked as UK Director of Sales. There, she helped to drive revenue and culture of the sales team, as well as led agency trading deals and relationships.
Azerion, the digital entertainment and media platform, has announced the appointment of a series of new hires, including Nicola Webb as UK Sales Director and Eva Starosolsky as Senior Research Executive. This follows a period of rapid growth for Azerion after the recent acquisitions of Hybrid Theory and Radionomy. Completing the new hires are Pauline Yoo to Account Director, Sophie Heaphy to Account Manager, Phoebe Madedega to Account Manager, Annie Port to Account Executive, and Petre Coman to Sales Account Executive. Lucy Zakrzewska has also been appointed to the Head of Sustainability – Supply Side and Megan Cross has been appointed to the Head of Sustainability – Demand side as the company develops its environmental consultancy capabilities. With more than twenty years of experience in the digital space, Webb was previously EMEA Director of Sales at Tapjoy where she ran the London agency and sales performance teams. Prior to this, Webb was the Director of Partnerships at Brainient, nurturing relationships and revenues to facilitate the Brainient acquisition by Teads. As Senior Research Executive, Starosolksy will provide pre-and post-campaign analysis, platform updates, social listening, cultural insight, and trend reports to Azerion’s clients – bolstering the insights available to the Blueprint team.
Impact-driven PR agency Speed has been appointed by AA Media to raise awareness its AA accreditation, Rosette scheme and awards, promoting the benefits of the organisation’s knowledge and expertise, and to drive traffic to its RatedTrips.com travel platform. Speed’s passion to make a difference coupled with the team’s energy, creativity and determination saw it win through in a competitive pitch process to provide support for AA Media’s press office team, develop concepts for regular thought leadership pieces, and craft ideas for RatedTrips.com, as well as stories linked to awards and ratings – to ensure a steady flow of quality content. Following AA Media’s launch of a business support portal for its trade audience, Speed will continue to deliver ongoing consumer and B2B campaigns that creatively bring to life how the company sets the benchmark for industry standards in hospitality, is the trusted source for people to make informed decisions about their trips, and is the best-placed organisation to support and promote the sector through its ratings and awards.
Team ITG, the technology-led, multichannel marketing activation business, has appointed James Chittenden as Creative Officer and Managing Director of Capture, ITG’s new £3.5m, 30,000 square foot filming studio. Chittenden joins with over two decades of creative marketing experience, previously serving as Executive Creative Director at cosmetics giant Avon. In his early career, he led high-profile brand strategy campaigns at Harrods, BrandOne, and Salivate. As well as acting as Creative Officer, Chittenden will manage Capture, the largest photography, video, and TV studio outside of London.
IPG has announced that Urvashi Shivdasani has been appointed Global Chief Financial Officer for Huge. Reporting directly to Mat Baxter, Huge’s Global Chief Executive Officer, Shivdasani oversees Huge’s commercial strategy and leads the company’s accounting, financial planning and analysis, real estate, commercial finance and information technology teams. Shivdasani joins Huge from Ralph Lauren, where she served as the SVP of Global Corporate Finance. There, she partnered with the executive team on Ralph Lauren’s transformation plan. Before Ralph Lauren, she was at Discovery Communications for 13 years and held a variety of business unit finance leadership roles across the diversified media company, most recently as the Division CFO for the US business segment.
Organic Search, Paid Media, Content Marketing & Digital PR, Social Media and Design… Click Consult has asked their industry experts to look ahead into 2023 to predict what’s to come in their related fields. From the first signs of Google Analytics 4 coming into its own ahead of the migration deadline from Universal Analytics, to the predicted death of TikTok; but out of the ashes comes the potential of a resurgence of one of the original video sharing platforms. Click Consult has put together the 8th iteration of this predictions infographic especially to help you make the right decisions for your business over the next 12 months without having to do all the legwork.
Global creator commerce company Whalar, has announced the appointment of Ashley Rudder as the industry’s first-ever Global Chief Creator Officer, a historic move that sets a new business standard for the $105B Creator Economy. As Global Chief Creator Officer (CCO) Rudder, who is also a professional creator, will ensure creators receive creative guidance, career support and have relevant advocates as they deliver award-winning campaigns for Whalar’s brand partners. Rudder, the first Chief Creator Officer, will now lead a global team that is committed to providing brand safety, equitable pay representation and creative excellence. Rudder was promoted from North American Head of Creator Partnerships, a role she has held since joining Whalar in September of 2021.
Merkle, dentsu’s technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management company, has triumphed in the Greater Good Awards for its work with human trafficking prevention charity, Stop The Traffik, to help combat the rapidly growing global social issue. Presented by Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife – the Greater Good Awards recognises companies and organisations who are helping to solve critical challenges within society, adding a sense of purpose and unity to communities struggling across the world. Merkle won the ‘Anti-Violence’ category for their pioneering advanced analytics Human Trafficking Scenario Tool which enables Stop The Traffik to identify potential victims of human trafficking through a user-friendly dashboard, with no need for technical training. Combining data collected by Stop The Traffik, from approximately 60,000 global human traffic stories, with intelligence data and Merkle’s advanced analytics skills, the scenario-based tool predicts the most likely outcome based on characteristics of potential victims, using the power of machine learning algorithms.
The Flywheelers, the integrated communications agency for high-growth technology startups and scaleups, announces the appointment of Samantha McKittrick as Associate Director. With over 10 years of experience in integrated B2B communications, she will support The Flywheelers in delivering brand momentum for clients and driving agency growth. She brings experience in digital and corporate storytelling, from supporting startups breaking into the UK market, through to conceiving and delivering integrated campaigns for scaleups and global organisations. This includes messaging and narrative development, setting the comms strategy, and managing programmes for ambitious industry leaders, such as Canon EMEA, Sopra Steria, Autodesk, Priority Pass and London North Eastern Railway (LNER), as well as disruptive start-ups and scaleups including GoCardless, Infogrid, Inevidesk and eNett. McKittrick joins The Flywheelers from Nelson Bostock. Prior to this, she worked for eight years at Brands2Life.
Independent performance marketing agency, SINE Digital, known for its groundbreaking digital strategies for the West End and brands such as Tottenham Hotspur, Percival and Yamaha, is pleased to announce it has promoted Ben Bunce to the role of MD, after previously holding the role of Chief Strategy Director. James Dale, who co-founded SINE Digital in 2017, will now step up to CEO of the newly-formed SINE Group, incorporating SINE Digital and newly launched companies Farlo, 5th Wall and SINE New York formed as a result of SINE Digital quadrupling in size during the pandemic. The wider group now provides an expanding offer from digital advertising agency through to web design and development and live entertainment marketing.
