Tremor Video recently announced the appointment of Andy Morley as managing director, UK; and, even more recently, that the UK arm of the global company would be undergoing some significant changes. ExchangeWire met with Morley (pictured below) on the day of his three-month anniversary at Tremor Video to discuss these changes and his new direction for the company.

When Morley was appointed as UK MD of the well-established ad network, he joined a company that faced an identity crisis. According to Morley, if you asked around, you would struggle to find somebody who could confidently define Tremor’s proposition in the market. Entering a business that was established as an ad network with a more nascent DSP and SSP offering, Morley had a tough decision to make. The decision may not be what was expected, but it was certainly bold.

Morley looked at the business in front of him and knew that, as a whole, it wasn’t working. The most obvious and safest option would have been to shut down the SSP and DSP part of the UK business, maintaining the established and lucrative ad network. But Morley knew that ‘safe’ wasn’t the answer. Tremor Video, headquartered in New York, with a footprint across The Americas, APAC, and EMEA, launched its DSP in 2014 and it has seen great success to date, but not necessarily in the UK market. The results of Morley’s investigation were that the DSP market was too congested in the UK and it didn’t make good business sense to continue to struggle in saturated conditions. Where he saw huge potential opportunity, however, was with Tremor’s SSP, as the UK market is crying out for an independent leader in this space.

“It was a tough decision to shut down the ad network part of the business”, explained Morley, “as that has always been a strong revenue stream for Tremor, but it was distorting our focus.” Morley discovered that operating three separate parts of the business in a comparatively small market to the US was not only causing external confusion, but internal confusion too. It was important for Morley to bring direction and vision to Tremor – no mean feat and a decision that he didn’t take lightly. When he took his plans to the US board, Morley expected to be met with a few sideways glances, at best, and to be directed to the nearest exit at worst. “I cannot reiterate enough the level of support I received from the US board”, explained Morley, who knew that he was basically asking his board to effectively allow the UK to have a separate strategy from the global operations of Tremor Video. Morley had developed a plan that would see Tremor completely reinvigorated in the UK market; a proposal that would certainly have made them sit up and listen.

Getting board approval was only the start of the journey; now Morley has to deliver on his objective of being the leading independent video SSP in the UK market, which has seen a string of acquisitions over the past few years; and will see him build a team of four senior publisher sales experts and launch with four AOP publishers within the next month – it’s all happening and it’s all happening very quickly, but this is an environment where Morley thrives. His broad industry career has seen him work in print and digital publishing, TV, radio, multi-platform advertising and, most recently, data and analytics; so he’s been around the block and loves (and is well-versed in) the challenge of building a new team to work on a new vision.

When asked if the world of video was daunting for him, or whether his background in traditional media is of benefit, Morley said that he thinks ad tech should use more traditional media talent. He admitted that, of course, this is relatively new ground for him; but the skills he has developed throughout his career are easily transferrable and there needs to be more alignment between traditional and digital media skills and resource. He argued that video is converging with TV and planners, buyers, and publishers in that traditional space have a lot to offer the video market.

Video is a huge opportunity market and, according to Tremor, will be a USD$100bn (£70.3bn) industry. However, according to Morley, publishers are not video-ready. This is where he sees Tremor Video being able to offer a service to the UK publisher market, in helping to educate publishers and helping them to embrace video formats that aren’t intrusive and will still engage the consumers of the content.

Beyond video generally, Morley sees significant opportunity for Tremor Video in the mobile arena. He cited a statistic from comScore that 65% of digital video time is now spent on mobile, so not to be in that space would seem foolish. How are Tremor Video going to embrace mobile video? As a cloud-based solution, their SSP is mobile-ready. There’s still work to be done, but they are on track. Aside from that, they are plugging into mobile-first DSPs and are communicating extensively with mobile-first agencies, so it’s clear where Morley wants his, and Tremor’s, focus to lie.

After that? Europe. Morley’s role is UK-focused, but they are working with publishers in Germany, France, and The Netherlands, as well as cultivating new business in the Nordics. Morley sees the European opportunity as thus: make it work in the UK, provide a proof-of-concept, and translate that into a European business model. He admits that there are existing strongholds in the EU region, yet that shouldn’t be a hindrance, but an opportunity, for potential acquisition to grow their new video SSP footprint.

Exciting times for Tremor Video UK – definitely one to watch.