Execs & Accounts: BMW, Grey West, Lyris, Mindset Media

BMW of North America selected Grey West as its agency of record. Grey will be BMW North America’s U.S. agency to handle traditional advertising, interactive, direct, and promotional marketing for each of BMW’s regions in the U.S. as well as BMW’s national pre-owned business. The account win follows a review that included Grey’s offices in San Francisco and New York. Previously BMW North America’s advertising duties were handled by four separate agencies.

Body Glove selected Lyris to manage its customer and partner e-mail marketing communications. The action sports brand will use Lyris to manage multiple e-mail lists and send tens of thousands of e-mail newsletters per month to customers and international licensing partners for messaging such as branding, new products, promotions, events, interactive features, and team riders.

DriverTV, online video content network launches with charter advertisers. Professionally-produced, high-definition auto-related video content played on drivertv.com launched as a content network with contextual advertisers including BMW, GM, Toyota, and Volvo. Network affiliates include Cox Auto Trader AutoMart, NBC Local Media, CBS Radio, AskPatty.com, Kosmix RightAutos, and The Car Connection.

Mindset Media hired three. JB Brokaw, executive director of sales and business development, was previously VP and GM at Range Online Media; he also served as director of business development at Quigo Technologies and national sales manager at CNET. Rosemary Biagioni, finance director, has worked with both traditional and online media networks. Prior to Mindset she held senior-level positions at SilverCarrot, Independent Media Services, and Kari-Out Company. Calvin Norman, sales director of Mindset Media Network, has held positions as a New York sales executive at CBS, WABC-TV, and Answers Corp. He has also spent time as an Internet advertising consultant providing business development strategy for clients, including Answers.com and the Associated Press.

Specific Media promoted Paul Oronoz within the sales department. Oronoz was promoted to regional vice president of West Coast sales. He will oversee sales and operations initiatives throughout the Western U.S. in addition to his current responsibilities leading the company’s Southwest offices. Oronoz joined Specific Media in 2004 as senior account executive.

Vonage co-founder joined ooVoo as COO. Louis Holder became chief operating officer of the online video communications service. Holder was a co-founder of voice-over IP service Vonage. In 2005 he became president of Novega Venture Partners, a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings. Most recently he held the position of CTO with Narrowstep, a company focused on bringing television programming to online.