CHICAGO, May 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sean Finnegan, Chief Executive Officer of
Geomentum, a unit of Mediabrands and the Interpublic Group of
Companies (NYSE: IPG), today restructured the agency's leadership
team to focus on client growth and deeper integration between
traditional and digital local media through the agency's
EnCompass™ hyper-local planning process. As the industry's
largest hyper-local agency, Geomentum takes a zip code-level
approach to national media planning and buying and serves the
industry's most active national retail brands, creating customized,
store-level plans that drive millions of transactions every
day.
Today, Finnegan named Lisa
Bradner Chief Client Services & Growth Officer.
Reporting to Finnegan, Bradner will oversee all matters of client
growth, including organic growth through existing clients as well
as new business in sectors that can benefit from geo-based
insights, such as restaurant, travel and financial. In addition to
directing all growth activities for the agency, Bradner will
oversee Geomentum's account service team, which stewards nearly
$2 billion in hyper-local billings.
In her newly-expanded role, Bradner will ensure that Geomentum
clients gain access to the deep neighborhood insights and analytics
available through Geomentum's store-level planning process and
supporting technology. A former Forrester VP/Analyst, and current
member of Procter & Gamble's Digital Advisory Board, Bradner
brings more than 20 years of marketing and brand expertise to
Geomentum clients. Bradner previously held the role of
President, Geomentum Solutions.
Finnegan also appointed Todd
Curry to the role of Chief Digital Officer, leading
the agency's burgeoning hyper-targeting digital practice. Reporting
to Finnegan, Curry will lead Geomentum's digital development,
training and activation and will integrate Geomentum's local
digital offering across IPG partner agencies such as Cadreon
(audience management), Reprise (search and social), Shopper
Sciences (shopper insights) and Momentum (event marketing), to
create store-level customer transactions across thousands of
business locations. Curry is a former General Manager of the hotel
sector for Orbitz, and was a Marketing Manager at Intel. He was
recently Founder/Managing Director of Omnicom Media Group's Trading
Desk, now known as Accuen Media.
Finnegan also hired Emily Olson-Torch as Geomentum's Director
of Client Services. Reporting to Bradner, Olson-Torch will
leverage her extensive local media experience and retail marketing
expertise to enhance the agency's dynamic client services process.
Olson-Torch joins Geomentum from Zappos, where she was a Brand
Manager directing Zappos' agency relationships and ensuring brand
alignment across all customer touch-points including offline
advertising, online direct response, promotions, co-op marketing,
public relations and event marketing.
"The explosion of new local behaviors and technologies gives
advertisers an opportunity to approach national marketing in a new
way; a way that includes deeper and more relevant targeting and
message versioning down to the zip-code level," says Sean Finnegan, Chief Executive Officer of
Geomentum, "Lisa, Todd and Emily will be critical leaders for
Geomentum as we help our clients to weave together digital and
traditional local efforts to create hyper-local plans with national
scale; ones that drives store-level transactions and can be
tailored and replicated across thousands of neighborhoods."
In December 2010, digital pioneer
Sean Finnegan joined Geomentum as
CEO, bringing digital acceleration to the rapidly growing company.
Since then, Finnegan has aggressively bolstered the agency's
digital capabilities with key hires, industry alliances and
partnerships. In January, Geomentum was named "Hyper-Local Agency
of the Year" by Media magazine for its innovative media
services and technology-enabled, store-level planning
capabilities.
About Lisa Bradner:
Prior to joining Geomentum, Lisa
Bradner was Vice President/Principal Analyst at Forrester
Research, the industry's leading marketing and media research
consultancy. Bradner's research at Forrester focused on brand
strategy and how companies can engage consumers online, offline,
and in-store. Her specific areas of focus include brand strategy,
loyalty marketing, cohort Web sites, in-store media, and marketing
asset management. Prior to joining Forrester, Bradner spent more
than 15 years in consumer marketing dually focused on brand and
direct marketing. She has worked for Fortune 500 manufacturers,
retailers, and marketers including American Express, Fortune
Brands, Sears and Time Inc. Bradner has developed and launched
award-winning new products and categories in the mass market, drug
and office product channels. Her career is a testament to her
prowess as a leader, successfully directing countless
cross-functional teams for brand management, market research,
consumer development, and new product introduction initiatives. As
a recognized industry leader, Bradner has been widely quoted by
publications such as Money Magazine, The New York Times, Advertising Age,
Adweek, and MediaPost. A Chicago native,
Bradner is a graduate of Yale
University and holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of
Management.
About Todd Curry:
A seasoned digital veteran, Curry began his digital career with
Intel in the mid-90s. He most recently was the Managing
Director of Accuen Media, Omnicom's digital display advertising
trading desk, which he transformed into an industry-leading
platform in less than 15 months. His prior experience
includes serving as GM of the hotel business for discount travel
site Orbitz; National Director of ecommerce for HSBC's Retail Card
Services division, and Marketing Manager at Intel, where he
directed online advertising programs for the company's Reseller and
Distributor Channels, as well as shaped ecommerce programs for
online PC makers Dell and Gateway. He spent the early part of his
career as a Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.
Curry holds an MBA in Analytical Finance from the
University of Chicago and a BS from
Northwestern University. He
currently serves on the advisory boards of MediaMath and
DoublePositive.
About Emily Olson-Torch:
Most recently a brand manager at Zappos, Olson-Torch directed
the company's agency relationships, ensuring brand alignment across
all customer touch-points including offline advertising, online
direct response, promotions, co-op marketing, public relations and
event marketing. In this role, Olson-Torch led the company's
integrated customer acquisition strategy, developing the retailer's
first, and most successful, 360 degree ad campaign, from concept to
implementation, across TV, OOH, digital, and radio. Previously,
Olson-Torch held roles at media agencies OMD and Starcom where she
spent over a decade in local media, helping major national
marketers such as McDonald's, Lowe's, Gatorade, State Farm, Bank of
America and others to create neighborhood-level programs that
complement national campaigns.
About Geomentum: Geomentum (www.geomentum.com), a division of
IPG's Mediabrands, is the largest hyper-local advertising agency in
the nation, managing two billion in local billings annually for the
most active national retail, restaurant, hospitality and CPG
brands. From "National to Neighborhood," Geomentum delivers
intelligent local activation, enabling national brands to deepen
their local presence through full-service media solutions such as
Grand Opening and Site Selection. As part of the Interpublic Group
of Companies, Geomentum has five US offices and employs 500
creative local strategists and innovators. With the mantra, "Own
the Neighborhood™," Geomentum offers a full spectrum of localized
media services that can be scaled across thousands of neighborhoods
and business locations. Geomentum was recently awarded "2010
Hyper-Local Agency of the Year" by the editors of MEDIA
magazine.
SOURCE Mediabrands