Interview: Lynda Clarizio, President, AOL’s Platform-A: Picking Up The Integration Pace
By David Kaplan - Mon 10 Mar 2008 02:30 PM PST
When AOL (NYSE: TWX) created Platform-A to pull the Time Warner division’s various advertising businesses together, the company hoped to move quickly to present marketers and publishers with a seamless offering of display, behavioral targeting and analytics. The difficulty of merging different business cultures is often cited as a major hurdle. By putting Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz as president of Platform-A, AOL had hoped to avoid the messiness that comes with these kinds of combinations, even as it was adding new ones, like contextual ad firm Quigo and affiliate marketing network Buy.at.
Apparently, those efforts hit a snag, as sources told me that AOL decided that Viebranz was moving too slowly on realigning the units, including Advertising.com, Tacoda, Lightningcast, Adtech and Third Screen Media, under Platform-A. And so, the company turned to Lynda Clarizio, who has headed Advertising.com for the past two years, tapping her to replace Viebranz immediately as president of Platform-A. An AOL veteran of nine years involved in the acquisition of Advertising.com and its integration, Clarizio is viewed internally as the best hope for finally being able to capitalize on the promise of Platform-A.
Clarizio talked to paidContent.org this afternoon about the sudden changes at AOL, as well as the loss of two high-profile ad execs within the past month.
She sidestepped questions as to whether these changes meant that the integration strategy wasn’t working, sticking mainly to outlining her short-term goal of unifying the various disciplines under Platform-A. Some excerpts:
-- What’s needed: “This is about moving forward with the integration of Platform-A. What we need to do now [is] move forward aggressively and create a stronger alignment within the teams in businesses within Platform-A. We’re still in an early stage of the business. I’m here to carry that forward. Right now, my main concerns are really internal - and it’s all about integration. Platform-A reaches about 90 percent of U.S. internet users. We need to get the message out about the assets we have to offer to advertisers and publishers.”
-- On Tacoda: After nearly six months, Tacoda’s behavioral targeting has yet to be fully added to Advertising.com. Clarizio lists this as top priority. “We are in the process of integrating that solution within AOL, in particular, enabling that solution within the Advertising.com network. I see this as a great opportunity to further extend Tacoda’s platform… This is all still in the early stages.”
-- Why she’s right for the post: “I’ve been in the role of president of Advertising.com for two years. I hope that the work that I have done at Advertising.com, in terms of driving this business to where it is today, can be carried forward to Platform-A as a whole.”
Posted in: Advertising, Companies, Time Warner, AOL
Tags: lynda clarizio,
