Rajeev Goel and Kirk McDonald to Speak at Cannes Lions’ First Annual TechTalk

Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder & CEO, and Kirk McDonald, President, of PubMatic have been selected to speak at The International Festival of Creativity’s first annual TechTalk program, an interactive, immersive experience centred around innovation in digital media and marketing. They will present on the topic, “What Can We Learn from the Best Consumer Brands: What Content Producers Need to Understand about Connecting with Audiences…and Making Money in the Process.”

Sponsored by MediaLink, TechTalk is a dedicated platform for forward-thinking businesses to demonstrate their pioneering work across the digital-marketing value chain while simultaneously providing a space for these companies to interact with the brand, publisher, and agency delegates at the Festival.

In addition to the PubMatic Executives, speakers such as Anthony Risicato, Randy Kilgore, and Melinda McLaughlin, GM Platforms, CRO, and CMO, respectively, of Tremor Video; Dan Gill, CEO, of Huddler; Janet Scardino and Kevin Arrix, CEO and CRO, respectively, of Viggle; Keith Richman and Andy Tu, CEO and SVP Marketing, respectively, of Break Media; and Allen DeBevoise, CEO of Machinima will speak on trends affecting the marketplace and the disruption which they are partially responsible for creating.

Michael Kassan, Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, summed up the unique opportunity the TechTalk program provides, “TechTalk represents the incredible growth and development of the digital media and marketing industries. It combines the universal theme of how to navigate today’s ever-evolving media landscape with specific subject matter experts speaking directly to strategies and solutions.”

“We are thrilled to begin this new program at this year’s festival,” added Terry Savage, Chairman of Cannes Lions. “This opportunity to amass such a valuable line-up of companies and their hugely talented executives to speak is truly a game-changer for us. To be able to hear directly from the lifeblood of the technology, media and marketing industry, is an un-missable chance to learn, be inspired and ultimately create ground-breaking work. We believe in these companies and are enthusiastic about this collaboration with our sponsor, MediaLink.”

TechTalk’s sessions will take place twice a day (10 am and 2 pm) from Monday June 18th through Friday June 22nd in the Palais des Festivals and will be open to all delegates. The PubMatic executives will speak on Wednesday, June 20th at 2 pm.

VivaKi Nerve Center Launches Audience On Demand™ Mobile in the UK

VivaKi’s dedicated R&D entity, the Nerve Center, announced last week the launch of Audience On Demand™ Mobile in the UK, following months of aggressive beta testing. AOD Mobile is an innovative extension to the Audience On Demand™(AOD) product suite which encompasses display, video and mobile. The addition of AOD Mobile aims to secure AOD’s position as the most comprehensive addressable media capability which aggregates precisely defined audiences from data sources and enables marketers to reach relevant audiences through a digital interface.

AOD Mobile is a new product that applies the same expertise, access, insights and results associated with AOD to the highly complex mobile advertising market. At its core, AOD Mobile aims to deliver pin-point audience targeting through data-driven decision in real-time, create pricing efficiencies by eliminating wasted impressions, and streamline the mobile buying and measurement process. AOD has served in excess of 120 billion impressions and services more than 30,000 campaigns across more than 625 advertisers. The product will be leveraged by VivaKi agencies in the UK, which include Starcom MediaVest Group, ZenithOptimedia and Razorfish. The product suite has also been awarded by TARGUSinfo with the first-ever Best in Audience Targeting award in October 2010 and recognized by DoubleVerify as one of the Most Compliant Platforms in March 2011.

Danny Hopwood, Director of Product for AOD, comments: “The mobile market has seen impressive growth this year and the proliferation of smartphones has made mobile a constant companion for the consumer. We have now reached a point in targeting capabilities, inventory availability and also industry understanding where we can fully leverage the capabilities of AOD to offer opportunities at scale. The mobile market still has some "maturing" to go through and we will continue to push the boundaries and innovate further.”

Geoff Smith, Head of Activation for AOD, adds: “AOD Mobile offers our agency brands and clients true audience addressability in mobile advertising for the first time. Using the same real time biddable (RTB) landscape as AOD's display and video campaigns, ensures they only pay the fair market value for each and every ad impression bought. It's this simplicity and the joined up nature of buying across display, video and mobile that now has clients looking to invest in mobile where they may not have done before.”

This announcement follows the news that VivaKi in the U.S., was a key partner with Google when mobile inventory was launched through Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange in November 2011. AOD Mobile will partner with a number of inventory sources in the UK, including Google’s AdMob.

StrikeAd partners with Regital to drive UK-wide growth

StrikeAd has partnered with Regital, a digital media solutions provider, to reach agencies and advertisers across UK regions. Regital will deliver StrikeAd's Real Time Bidding (RTB) and Direct Response (DR) mobile technology to allow local organisations to mount direct response advertising campaigns in the fast growing mobile advertising market.

Since launching 12 months ago, Regital has witnessed growth by being the first regional sales house to represent digital media partners focused on the exchange space in major regional centres including Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Its media partners are now running campaigns for many of the largest advertisers who fall within regional agency control as well as those in a client direct capacity.

said Tim Finn, Head of EMEA, StrikeAd, comments: “Real Time Bidding is here to stay, and it is going to grow in importance over the coming years across Europe, as well as the U.S. It's not just London-based players that want to use the leading technology in the RTB space – a growing number of regional partners and creative agencies are demanding the same functionality and our partnership with Regital ensures we can support these companies.”

Ian Vint, Director, Regital, adds: “After launching only 12 months ago, we have witnessed significant growth by being the first in the regional market to represent digital media partners utilising and leading the way within the RTB display space. StrikeAd's mobile media offering provides a perfect fit within our current portfolio which includes Media iQ (display) and Brightroll (video) to support advertisers and agencies across the UK in their digital campaigns.

“We are delighted to be partnering with StrikeAd, as its ability to meet direct response requirements is key for success across the regional landscape. We have seen immediate campaign success across a number of mobile DR campaigns and envisage the year ahead to be extremely buoyant.”

StrikeAd offers the world’s first mobile-specific advertising Demand Side Platform (DSP). It allows media agencies to manage and optimise multiple global mobile advertising campaigns from multiple advertisers from a single platform. Advertisers can buy best performing inventory to provide effectively filtered and optimised sales leads.

Weborama Boosts Management Team

Weborama, a European internet advertising and behavioural targeting company, announced last week the addition of Sonia Mamin to its management team.

Sonia Manin will be managing the Technollogy Business Unit in France and joining the Weborama Board of Directors.

For more than 10 years, Sonia Mamin held management positions in the advertising technologies field. After having launched and managed operations for ValueClick in France, she joinged DoubleClick as Country Manager for France. Upon the takeover of DoubleClick by Google in 2008, she became Head of Southern Europe for DoubleClick. In 2010, Sonia Mamin created the French subsidiary of smartclip, an in-stream video platform. When that company was bought out by Adconion, she accepted the position of VP Sales Europe at Ifeelgoods, a yound startup that promotes digital goods (ie Facebook credits, Zynga, iTunes credits, ect.).