Robert Meth
TubeMogul has made three senior hires to help expand its sales and marketing footprint in Canada. Among them is former AOL Platforms sales manager Jennifer Foley, who will lead the programmatic video company’s sales efforts in Western Canada from a new satellite office in Vancouver.
“The west has been a big market for us, particularly in Calgary and Vancouver,” said TubeMogul Canada president Grant le Riche. “We’ve had a lot of demand out there, and we couldn’t properly service it so we wanted to bring in some boots on the ground.”
TubeMogul has been aggressive in its pursuit of Canadian clients, forming partnerships with Bleublancrouge, One Advertising and Kijiji in the latter half of 2014. According to company figures, TubeMogul makes roughly 33% of its revenue in non-U.S. markets, and in the two years since it opened an office in Toronto, its Canadian staff has grown to 20.
Le Riche said Foley’s previous role at AOL’s programmatic-focused Platforms division in the U.K. had given her valuable experience in the ad tech business. Prior to working at AOL, she was at online marketing company Adpepper Media, and before that she helped launch the Sun Travel network at News International.
At the national level, Robert Meth will lead the company’s Canadian enterprise sales of its self-service buying technology, which agencies and brands can license to perform their own trading. Meth comes from Mediacom, where he was director of new business development. Prior to that he worked in digital sales and accounts at Rogers for six years.
Le Riche said TubeMogul is expanding the enterprise side of the business in response to a growing trend of independent agencies like One Advertising and Bleublancrouge working hands-on in programmatic. “Mid-tier agencies are starting to develop their own tactics, and instead of having a siloed off trade desk, they want to have programmatic as an all-encompassing service of the agency. A lot of brands are starting to demand that transparency,” he said.
Jutta Gruenewald joined as regional director for agency sales, where she will manage TubeMogul’s relationships with media companies and agencies. Gruenewald has a long history in broadcast, having spent the last eight years in senior digital and broadcast sales roles at the CBC. She’s also worked for Canwest and CTV.
Le Riche said her broadcast background would translate well to the kind of brand-focused digital video inventory available on TubeMogul’s platform, and will be an asset in developing the company’s “screen agnostic” approach to video advertising.
TubeMogul recently released its strategic vision for 2015, which included the news that it would be expanding into display advertising. Clients will have the option to extend their video campaigns with display ads, or run standalone display campaigns; however the platform will remain focused on brand advertising and will not expand to direct response.
“The basis of what we’re doing is creating software tools to enable easier buying for brands,” said le Riche. “Display is just an obvious next step, in terms of frequency of messaging.”
