Canadian social analytics firm Engagement Labs has brought on a new CEO and convened a panel of CMOs from major brands to help its social metrics become a global standard.
According to the company’s new leadership, the moves are meant to mark the next phase in Engagement Labs’ evolution, focusing on business development around its core eValue product.
Bryan Segal, former vice-president of sales at comScore Canada, is Engagement Labs’ new CEO.
“Like most startups, Engagement Labs was focused on driving R&D for several years. That culminated in July with the release of the eValue combination score for social,” he said. Now the company is “working towards monetization, and making a push to become a sales and marketing machine.”
Segal had been with comScore Canada since 2000, a year after the company was founded and four months after it came to Canada. As vice-president of sales, Segal helped comScore grow from an emerging tech startup to the measurement leader it is today.
He said that the Engagement Labs board of directors was looking for the same sales and business development expertise in its new CEO. Segal was recruited earlier this year by vice chair Rob Dickson. (Engagement Labs is a public company, listed on the TSX Venture exchange.)
Segal said he sees parallels between where digital media was when comScore was starting up and where social media is today. In 2000, digital was a brand new medium, and there was real thirst for measurement to prove its effectiveness and properly value it. Today brand dollars are moving to social, but measurement is still in its infancy. A big ask from brands is a social currency to determine what Facebook native ads or Twitter promoted posts are worth – as Nielsen TV ratings are used in TV, or comScore Media Metrix in display.
Engagement Labs aspires to make eValue the currency for social. The product uses a proprietary algorithm to score brands based on 250 metrics such as views, interactions and sentiment across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Engagement Labs provides an analytics toolset to help brands understand and optimize their score, and an eValue Index that ranks them against 55,000 global brands.
Segal takes over from former CEO and founder Paul Allard, who will remain on the executive team as chief innovation officer. In his new role, Allard will continue to develop eValue and other measurement products.
CMO STEERING COMMITTEE FORMED
Engagement Labs also announced the formation of a new Founders Steering Committee, chaired by John Boynton, CMO of Aimia. The committee will work with the company’s leadership and data scientists to help define social metrics that matter to marketers.
“I know from personal experience that the industry really needs these measurement tools,” Boynton said in a release. “Who better to steer their development than a proven team of experienced marketing and advertising executives?”
The committee includes Pete Marino, chief public affairs and communications officer of MillerCoors; Chris O’Neill, head of global business operations at Google X; Martin Riley, president of the World Federation of Advertisers; Daryl Simm, CEO of Omnicom Media Group; and Gemma Toner, SVP business insights and strategy at Cablevision.
“We plan to use their knowledge and use their years of experience to inform our products, and drive the business forward,” said Segal. “The seniority of the folks that are on steering committee speaks to the faith marketers have in Engagement Labs.”
