Execs & Accounts: Publicis, Cactus, Platform-A

Enid Burns | April 9, 2009 | 0 comments

Pro bono work by Publicis New York Gives kids a boost to stay in school. As part of the Ad Council and the Army's High School Dropout Prevention initiative, which launched in 2000, Publicis worked on a national public service advertisement (PSA) series called "Boost." The series is anchored by a Web site, www.boostup.org, co-created and produced by @radical media, and includes several alarm ringtones kids can download for their phones. The ringtones were recorded by the New York Knicks' Nate Robinson, Chicago Bears' Lance Briggs, Phoenix Suns' Amare Stoudemire, and Baltimore Ravens' Willis McGahee.

Cactus hires two. Denver based ad agency Cactus hired Stephanie Shawn, interactive director, and Vanessa Louis, account executive. Shawn was most recently director of delivery and practice manager at Xylem Digital. Louis joined Cactus as account executive for Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment accounts focused on adult tobacco cessation and chronic disease prevention. She previously worked at Karsh\Hagan.

Ellis receives promotion at Platform-A. Mark Ellis was named executive vice president of sales at AOL's Platform-A. He will lead efforts to expand the network's digital ad sales and leverage Platform-A's reach. Ellis has been with AOL for five years; his most recent title was SVP, vertical and product sales.

Yodle recruits IAC's Chupp. Local online advertising company Yodle named Bryan Chupp senior vice president of marketing. Chupp previously served as senior vice president of marketing and product at FiLife, a personal finance Web community backed by IAC and Dow Jones. He also worked as VP of partnerships and loyalty marketing group for LendingTree.com, another IAC company.

Two join Millennial Media. Mack McKelvey was named vice president of marketing. She was previously senior director of marketing at SIRIUS XM Radio. McKelvey has held senior marketing roles at VeriSign, American Management Systems, and 2nd Century Communications. Marcus Startzel, senior vice president, sales, also joined the mobile ad network. He was previously vice president of advertiser services at DigitalSports, and vice president of sales at Advertising.com.

Experian recruits Responys executive. Jeff Lundal was appointed vice president, sales. Most recently he served as senior vice president of global sales at Responsys. He will oversee the sales team at Experian and CheetahMail.

AdGent 007 brings in Blummer to lead U.S. ad sales. Bill Blummer was named vice president of U.S. sales. He previously directed national online advertising sales for CBS Digital Media. He has also worked in ad sales positions at companies including McClatchy Interactive, MeeVee.com, Lycos, and Excite@Home.

CBS selects Apptera to run a mobile campaign for "Harper's Island." Apptera will run a mobile ad campaign through its Mobile AdXchange via Moviefone and MovieTickets.com to promote CBS's upcoming 13-episode murder mystery, "Harper's Island." Callers to either movie service are served an audio ad and can opt-in to receive weekly SMS text Buzzz Alerts to engage fans and remind them to tune in to the show throughout the run of the series.

Teracent hires VP of Sales. Chip Scovic signed on as VP of sales and will be responsible for the optimization platform's advertiser and agency partnerships. Previously Scovic was at Yahoo, where he led several technology solutions sales teams and worked on the launch of the Smart Ads program. He also spent five years at DoubleClick.

Adicio and High Gear Media sign content syndication agreement. Adicio Motors clients will be able to use editorial content from TheCarConnection.com such as news, content, and links to articles and reviews. Adicio is a classified ad software company while High Gear Media runs a network of auto buying Web sites.

Red Door Interactive's senior strategist joins advisory board.The consultancy said its senior strategist Morgan Witt will serve on the board of SmartBrief's Social Media group.