Brian Quinn started his digital media adventure by volunteering to head up sales for the fledgling AdAge.com when it launched in May, 1995. Since then Quinn has had digital sales leadership roles at CBS MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, and Triad Retail Media. Quinn led global sales and business development for OpenSlate through its acquisition by DoubleVerify in 2021. He currently serves as Chief Growth Officer at Pixability. Quinn was the Founder and first President of 212, New York’s Interactive Advertising Club and was honored with the Ad-Tech Industry Achievement Award in 2014.
Who is your digital hero?
John Montgomery, Executive Vice President, Global Brand Safety, GroupM.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
John has always been a leading media agency voice from the early days of digital media, pushing for standards and innovation that contributed significantly to helping grow the digital ecosystem and drive better results for his clients. Clients trusted him to get the most of digital media partnerships, and do so with the utmost transparency and integrity.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
John and GroupM were early and passionate advocates for the concept of “viewability” in digital media. His efforts helped take viewability from a nice to have metric in media, to a fully scaled and accepted metric.
And, in 2017 John established the first ever Agency Brand Safety Team, paving the way for common terms, standards and prioritization of brand safety for advertisers and the ecosystem. While passionately advocating for brand safety, John also stressed having the right balance between caution and advertising efficiency and performance.
What are the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
As newer digital platforms appear and thrive (CTV, TikTok, Twitch, etc…) it’s imperative that there is a healthy, third-party ecosystem in place to help brands navigate these sometimes unpredictable and dynamic environments.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Much of digital media’s history saw a slow and steady race to the bottom, from an early focus on clicks, to the commoditization of impressions. As a digital sales leader at The Wall Street Journal, Triad Retail Media, OpenSlate, and now Pixability, I worked hard to resist those trends in our business, by making the case that premium audiences, delivered in premium environments, deserve premium pricing from advertisers.
One of the things that attracted me to Pixability was the company’s commitment to ensuring video ads on YouTube and CTV are not only safe/suitable, but also that advertisers are maximizing the value of their media spend.
