London, September 2013: Audience insights company VisualDNA has appointed Brian O’Sullivan as Managing Director of its Media Division, reporting to Chief Commercial Officer Ian Woolley. VisualDNA’s Media Division provides advertisers with high quality demographic, brand, intent and emotive data to power highly targeted advertising.
The wider VisualDNA commercial team has also been bolstered by the arrival of Ed Weatherall, appointed to the newly-created role of Business Development Director for Brands. He also reports to Woolley, alongside Business Development Director for Publishers Addy Cutts.
VisualDNA is expanding to meet the growing demand for data-driven marketing. In addition to the organic growth of programmatic media buying, other parts of the media-buying chain are looking to third-party data to understand what motivates online audiences. VisualDNA’s unique data set, founded on self-declared demographic, intent, brand preference and now emotive data – collected through its patented visual quizzes – has commercial applications beyond programmatic advertising, something VisualDNA aims to capitalise on with its free analytics tool, WHYanalytics.
O’Sullivan who joins VisualDNA having co-founded UK-based premium mobile and tablet ad company Mobsta, is well-known for his time as Managing Director of AdPepper, one of the leading independent international online advertising marketers.
O’Sullivan’s team also includes the recent hire of Tom Rolph, as Business Development Director for Audience Platforms. In addition to integrations with leading DSPs Media Math, Turn, App Nexus and Videology – which enable the use of data in programmatic campaigns, VisualDNA data is also available to global publishers through its integration with DoubleClick For Publishers. A former founder of Australian video advertising start-up, VOLT Media, Rolph will focus on working with platforms alongside Director of Agency Sales James Lovelace.
Alongside O’Sullivan, Weatherall brings a wealth of brand experience to VisualDNA, as a former Commercial Director at the IDM and founder of international agency Concep.
Ian Woolley, Chief Commercial Officer at VisualDNA said, “The appointments of Brian, Ed and Tom help us to build significant momentum as we continue our drive to make big data useful for media businesses. The market for data is growing beyond programmatic and, given VisualDNA’s position as the only provider of quality psychographic data we see many wider applications for it in advertising and beyond.
“Products like WHYanalytics, powered by VisualDNA’s profiling technology, can help marketers better understand their customers’ psychological profile in addition to demographic and intent data. By making that information useful for marketers, in real time, and in a way that’s relevant and valuable to the consumer – we can focus more on understanding the person, and less on targeting the cookie.”
