Former Virgin Mobile CEO David Scribner has joined Ooh!Media in the newly created role of chief customer officer.
The new role has been announced in the wake of the recent out of home (OOH) merger approval by the ACCC, which sees Ooh!Media become one of the largest outdoor media businesses in Australia after agreeing to purchase Adshel for $570 million in June.
Ooh!Media CEO Brendon Cook says Scribner is pivotal in bringing together the two businesses under a unified strategy and approach to market.
Scribner joined Virgin Mobile as CMO in 2011 and after two years was promoted to the CEO role. He left in Feburary 2017 to become CEO of local business directory, True Local.
During his time at Virgin Mobile, Scribner oversaw the Fair Go Bro and Game of Phones campaigns. He is also the chairman of the board of Ad Standards.
Cook says the company recognised 18 months ago the need for a chief customer officer in order to lead revenue generation and support the business strategy tha Ooh!Media started developing in 2012 to evolve the business by 2020.
"From introducing powerful new data sets, to enabling advertisers to better reach and target their audiences, to introducing content across our inventory, to growing our existing network of classic and digital inventory while creating new opportunities for consumers to engage with advertisers at the right scale,” he says.
“To support this, we identified that we needed to change the way we engaged with our various customers. Our advertisers, agency customers and our property partners had changing needs and at the same time government and consumers’ expectations of OOH as a public space medium were also changing rapidly."
Scribner will help advertisers and property partners engage with audiences more deeply and to bring together key functional areas that directly support media buying clients.
“Out of home is a great medium to build brands and what’s more, it is more cost effective when compared to other channels,” Scribner says.
“Ooh! is the clear leader in the field, by continuing to evolve what the industry looks like to meet the needs and challenges of advertisers.”
In May this year it was revealed that Optus was planning to shutter Virgin Mobile, ending the telco's 18 presence in Australia. The business will be wound up over the next two years and the decision sees over 200 jobs slashed.
All Virgin sales and marketing will now be consolidated under the Optus brands, as the company plans to fill as many current Optus vacancies as it can with outgoing Virgin employees.
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