Execs & Accounts for April 5, 2004

Google and Overture both signed distribution partners Monday. Google scored with BellSouth and Overture won agreements with CNN.com, ESPN.com and the Wall Street Journal Online (WSJ.com).

Google snagged a multi-year agreement with BellSouth to provide search for its ISP site, www.home.bellsouth.net, along with contextual listings through its AdSense product.

Overture signed a new, multi-year deal with WSJ.com to provide paid search as well as contextual search via Overture’s Content Match offering. The Yahoo-owned company also added contextual listings to the paid search it provides CNN.com and ESPN.com and extended existing agreements with the two publishers.

About nine months ago, Overture provided paid listings to BellSouth, and until now, Google provided contextual listings for CNN.com.

“The marketplace has gotten to the place where as a publisher, the majority of the time the decision you’re making is between the two primary portals [Google and Overture] in terms of algorithmic search and paid search results,” said Kevin Lee of Did-It.com. “It’s a good time to be a publisher because both parties want you. It brings us back to the early adage, ‘Content is king.'”

Carat Interactive promoted Toby Gabriner to the new position of chief operating officer, overseeing all agency services and contributing to the agency’s overall strategy. Gabriner transfers to COO from his prior role as executive VP and managing director at Carat Interactive, Carat North America’s digital agency division. He last served as president and COO of Freestyle Interactive.

Responsys hired former Modem Media exec Dan Springer as CEO. As managing director in Modem Media’s San Francisco office, Springer led the agency’s Western United States operations. Prior to that post, he served as CEO of Telleo and CMO for NextCard. He started his career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and DRI/McGraw-Hill.

“He has the capabilities, knowledge and expertise to accelerate Responsys’ growth and extend its market leadership into new areas of digital marketing,” said Bruce Golden, partner at Accel Partners and member of the Responsys board.

DoubleClick has entered an exclusive, three-year agreement with Tribune Interactive and Classifieds, both divisions of Tribune Company, to provide online ad management and email marketing support. The sister divisions will leverage DoubleClick’s DART Enterprise and DARTmail solutions to campaigns for a group of Web properties that includes latimes.com, chicagotribune.com and newsday.com

“DoubleClick’s ad management software has long provided Tribune Web sites with reliable and efficient ad delivery across our network,” said Brigid Kenney, Tribune Interactive and Classifieds general manager. “We look forward to similar strong results from its email marketing tool.”

CheckM8 added the E. W. Scripps Company and Universal Television Group’s Scifi.com to its client roster. The new customers will use CheckM8’s Rich Media Manager system to power rich media ads throughout their sites.

“CheckM8 enables our local newspaper sites to offer rich media to their advertisers, with quick turnaround times and simple implementation”, said Vikki Neil, director of online marketing for Scripps newspapers.