Dive Brief:
- AOL is growing its C-suite with a newly-minted Chief Mobile Officer designation to be filled by Mark Connon, previous evp of platform business for Millennial Media.
- According to Adweek, Connon will lead AOL’s global mobile strategy including Millennial Media’s ad network and mobile video service go90.
- AOL purchased Millennial Media last September for $238 million.
Dive Insight:
Mobile is an important medium for marketers right now and is at the core of successful strategies. It has fully moved from emerging opportunity to top channel for reaching a vast number of consumers in timely and tailored ways. In creating the chief mobile position, AOL is acknowledging the importance of this migration and staying ahead of the curve.
"AOL's global reach, scale, infrastructure and brands already provide a differentiated starting point for mobile, but the combination of these brands and assets take advertiser and publisher opportunities to new heights," Connon told Adweek.
He added that mobile opportunities “overshadow the medium’s challenges” and cited enhanced targeting, data solutions, and compelling ad formats among the opportunities also stating that AOL will be making significant investments in attribution, targeting and first-party data utilization.
In other recent AOL news, in part because of the Millennial Media acquisition, it created the One by AOL: Publishers platform that combined six different technologies that provides publisher with one pricing model and one Master Service Agreement where previously they had to work separately with each of the different ad tech divisions. AOL also announced buying programmatic ad platform AlephD, which will remain a standalone brand while its technology will become part of the One by AOL: Publishers platform.
AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications in a $4.4 billion deal last year.