TV data and effectiveness business Adgile Media has appointed former Vodafone global head of media Paul Evans as its first global CEO.
Evans joins to lead the company’s continued growth in Australia, and expansion into its key strategic markets of North America and Europe through a focus on product innovation, marketing, talent development and culture.
An international marketing and media specialist with more than 20 years of experience, he has been serving as a board advisor to Adgile over the last 12 months.
Evans tells AdNews that his advisory role gave him a great taste of the business before founder and chief innovation officer Shaun Lohman and chief revenue officer Craig Service asked him to join in a full-time capacity.
“I remember the day vividly when they sprung it on me. It was very much a surprise,” Evans says.
“It’s a great honour and great opportunity for me to work with a team of people I love and genuine innovation within the TV industry.”
Over his career, Evans has also served in senior client-side leadership roles at Kimberly-Clark, Xbox and Vodafone, as well as media agency roles in China and Dubai.
He also supports and mentors several startup ad technology businesses.
As global head of media at Vodafone, he led the company’s marketing operations strategy, including defining its media technology partnerships, establishing new verification approaches and standards, and driving the inhousing of its search, social and programmatic media capabilities.
During that time, he was able to “get under the hood” to see what technology was differentiated and unique in the market.
When he was initially introduced to the team at Adgile, the intelligent content recognition (ICR) technology that Lohman had created was a huge drawcard for him to work with the business.
“I wanted to join and help build a truly innovative and game-changing business,” he says.
“Adgile’s visual recognition technology is exactly that, bringing unique real-time visibility and control to fuel the future of TV data and effectiveness.
“It’s a true privilege to be part of the amazing Adgile team at this time of accelerated growth, as we deliver better TV measurement for a modern marketing era.”
Lohman says Evans’ experience both client and agency side will be of great benefit as Adgile enters its next phase of growth.
“As the TV industry rapidly evolves to embrace the data and technology-driven opportunities of on demand, independent harmonised measurement across the ecosystem becomes essential, and Adgile is leading this change,” Lohman says.
“Paul’s understanding and passion for what matters to both brands and agencies, combined with his strategic and marketing capabilities, make him a great choice of CEO to complement our existing leadership team in driving this transformation – we’re excited to have him aboard.”
An Aussie success story
Evans’ appointment comes off the back of what has been a successful year and a half for Adgile.
Brewing behind the scenes for the last five years before officially launching in-market 18 months ago, the company has been upping the ante in the world of TV with its ICR technology.
In that short time, it has expanded the business into nine markets - and counting - around the world.
Receiving accolades from across the globe, including the Innovation in Media Award at the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards, the company has launched partnerships with broadcasters including Nine and Foxtel and more recently with WPP’s media investment arm GroupM.
Lohman says he believes the company’s success in its young lifespan boils down to the need in-market for what Adgile has to offer.
Offering great insights into the effectiveness of TV advertising, the technology watches, interprets, and collects data from TV broadcasts in real-time.
“It actually mimics a human being like you and I watch TV,” Lohman tells AdNews.
“You and I don’t look at the metadata behind it. We actually look at the images and that’s what ICR does.
“It looks at high definition images, every second on every single channel and its algorithms allow it to identify what is in each image.”
The technology looks at and is able to compare similar adverts, as well as in-program content.
Advertisers have visibility of their own share of voice and how this compares to across different categories, how many people are watching their adverts in real-time and when competitors have launched a campaign.
“For instance, if Coca-Cola wants to see their share of voice for Mount Franklin water, they can see that within water or they can see it by supermarket,” Lohman says.
One of the big issues for measurement and attribution has been its opacity, making it hard for brands to truly decipher where the source of its sale comes from.
Evans believes that accountability of investment is one of the biggest areas of concern for marketers.
Likewise, Lohman says transparency has been a priority for the business from day one and they actually encourage clients to audit them
“We absolutely want to make sure that we can be held fully accountable because one of the biggest opportunities for TV to triumph digital media is to maintain its credibility,” he says.
“That comes from being really transparent with the data.”
Making change
As a seasoned marketer Evans is a firm believer in the importance of the function and considered how its application can be of assistance for startups.
“The application of 20 years of marketing experience and being able to bring that to startup businesses that are in their infancy, it’s one of the things that I considered in taking the role,” he says.
“As a marketer, [what is] the value that a marketing mindset and experience can bring to a startup business?
“Marketing tends to be one of those downstream functions - one of the last things you put into a business.
“Whereas I see it as very much like a strategic capability and something at the heart of the business that drives everything from people and culture to overarching business strategy and commercialisation as well as product.”
Drawing on this experience, he has plans already underway.
With analytics, attribution and activation as its three key pillars, Evans says there will be several areas that his new role will see him focus on to bring Adgile into its next phase of growth.
“Market expansion and product innovation at the core are fundamental gamechangers to the way that this business will look and feel in six months or a year’s time,” he says.
“[The focus will be on] the ability to scale and replicate our model across different markets.
“We will be working towards different ways that we can be extending the application of our first-party data through the platform, through analytics, attribution and activation capabilities we have and beyond that.
“But the hardest thing for any CEO or business is talent and culture. I see that as the number one agenda for the role.”
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