Brands may be pouring money back into online display advertising, but that doesn’t mean that display advertising works or won’t be replaced by something else in the next few years. Will it be social, mobile, or something else? At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, we’ll get into this debate with three of the best operators in online advertising: Facebook’s new VP of Global Advertising Carolyn Everson, Medialets CEO Eric Litman, and Right Media founder Mike Walrath.
Media companies and brands still don’t understand the power of social advertising, and Everson is going to explain it to them. She left Microsoft in February to join Facebook, and before that was head of sales at MTV Networks. Social ads are more about getting consumers to share a brand’s message on their own—turning consumers into brand ambassadors—than pushing the message in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Call it social targeting.
As computing goes mobile, that changes the prospects for brand advertising as well. On the one hand, tablets offer a more magazine-like experience for both content and ads. But beyond that, they bring location into the mix, which may turn out to be the most important targeting factor of all. Medialets powers the ads on many tablet publications, including The Daily, and is built into Adobe’s creative suite. Litman is taking on Apple’s own iAds on the iPad, and winning. He will explain how he does that.
Walrath was instrumental in making ad buying more efficient by creating an exchange for display ads with Right Media, which he sold to Yahoo for $850 million. But now he thinks that measuring clicks and impressions is the wrong focus for brands. His new startup, Moat, is trying to address that deficiency. Until it does, online display is going to have a tough time taking away advertising budgets from TV, which he think is still a pipe dream.
You can read the full list of announced speakers here. We have many more special guests to announce as May 23rd comes closer. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, make sure you do so here. If you are coming with us, we have a couple of great partnerships in place to help you find the perfect New York accommodations. We’ve partnered with Oyster.com who is providing a Disrupt hotel reservation list, plus your very own Disrupt Concierge Service for all Disrupt conference attendees. Oyster.com is also giving an additional 20% off room rates. You can read all about it here.
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Carolyn Everson
VP of Global Advertising Sales, Facebook
Carolyn Everson is the Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Facebook, where she leads the global advertising team focused on top strategic accounts and global agencies. In addition, she oversees media strategy, advertising sales, and account management. Prior to Facebook, Carolyn was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Global Advertising Sales and Trade Marketing Teams. Carolyn led the company’s advertising business across Bing, MSN, Windows Live, Mobile, Gaming, Atlas and the Microsoft Media Network. Carolyn spent seven years at MTV Networks. Her last role was as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of U.S. Ad Sales for MTV Networks where she oversaw strategic planning, operations and finance for MTVN’s U.S. Ad Sales department. She also was responsible for MTVN’s Direct Response business and the cross platform, cross brand strategic sales and marketing group called Generator. Carolyn has also worked at Primedia Inc., where she was Vice President and General Manager of several digital businesses, and held business development positions at brands including Zagat Survey and Walt Disney Imagineering. She is a board member of the Effies and dmg. Carolyn holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and communications from Villanova University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. She also obtained a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard where she was a Baker Scholar.
Eric Litman
Charmain and CEO, Medialets
Eric Litman is Chairman and CEO of Medialets, the most widely deployed rich media ad platform for mobile. He is a pioneer of the Internet’s commercialization, and as a co-founder of Proxicom, helped to build one of the first, largest, and most successful publicly traded interactive agencies. Eric most recently served as Managing Director of WashingtonVC, an early-stage fund and incubator. Previously, Eric held senior executive roles in high-growth Internet businesses, as founder and CEO of Viaduct Technologies, a global Internet and mobile interactive agency. He was also instrumental in building digitalNATION, a web hosting and services provider, from its launch through its $100m acquisition by Verio Internet/NTT (NYSE: NTT). Eric began his career with technical and software engineering positions at GEnie, a pre-Internet online service provider, and NeXT Computer.
Investor, Advisor and Founder of start up and expansion stage companies. Formerly Founder, President and CEO of Right Media Inc. Walrath founded Right Media, Inc., (formerly Right Media, LLC) in 2003. He served as CEO until the company’s July 2007 sale to Yahoo. He had a successful career at DoubleClick (and later MaxWorldwide) where he served as Director of direct marketing and Senior Vice President of strategy and development. In 2001, he was responsible for the creation of DoubleClick Direct, its direct marketing offering. He has been a Director of Meteor Games, LLC since December 15, 2010. He served as a Director of Interactive Advertising Bureau Inc. He was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2007. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Richmond.
