John Haake Joins Verve as Chief Marketing Officer

Programmatic and Digital Advertising Veteran Oversees Marketing Strategies with Focus on Driving Company Growth and Vision

NEW YORK — Verve, the leader in location-based mobile advertising, announced today the appointment of John Haake as its chief marketing officer. Haake is responsible for developing and leading marketing strategies that will advance Verve’s position in the market, specifically focusing on Verve Direct, the industry’s only end-to-end programmatic platform for location-based mobile advertising.

Haake brings more than 20 years of marketing communication experience in increasing valuation and exposure for data-driven programmatic media, paid retail search, and demand side platform companies. Most recently, Haake was VP of marketing at [x+1] (acquired by Rocket Fuel in August 2014), where he played an integral role in guiding the data management platform to successful exit and subsequent positioning of the newly merged company.  Prior to that, Haake was VP of marketing at HookLogic, a retail search platform, and Turn, where he repositioned an ad network into an industry-leading demand side platform. Haake also held various executive marketing positions at Synaptic Digital, MediaMind (currently Sizmek), and RichFX.

“John has a history of success differentiating complicated tech offerings in highly competitive markets,” said Tom MacIsaac, CEO of Verve. “Now that we’ve built out our programmatic mobile platform, Verve will benefit from John’s unique experience and expertise in crafting clear messages that will deliver on the promise of location-driven mobile marketing.”

Haake’s hire comes on the heels of several announcements including the recent board appointment of well-known Internet equity analyst, Jordan Rohan, the launch of the industry’s first end-to-end programmatic location-based mobile advertising offering, Verve Direct, and a partnership with Gimbal, to offer an industry-first combination of micro-proximity engagement and location-based mobile advertising technology and analytics. As the company continues to expand its client roster, it will be Haake’s charge to differentiate Verve’s offerings and capture the attention of marketers who will benefit from measurable drive-to-retail advertising campaigns.

“I am a long-time believer in the magic that occurs when technology and data are harnessed to deliver more timely, relevant and valuable marketing messages directly to consumers,” said Haake. “Advertisers win when we can do this, and the Verve programmatic platform, with its direct from the source location data, can make it happen more often by effectively driving foot traffic to conversion.”

About Verve

Since 2005, Verve has pioneered harnessing real-time mobile location data to help advertisers drive foot traffic in the real world – where 93% of all consumer sales still occur. The Verve programmatic location-based mobile platform empowers advertisers to engage on-the-move consumers with relevant and valuable messages via the most personal of digital devices, their smartphone. Verve analyzes billions of precise location signals generated directly from thousands of opt-in mobile applications. This direct from the source data is unique to Verve and illuminates consumers’ path-to-purchase ensuring advertisers reach the right people at the right time in the right location. Today, Verve continues to lead the space serving more than 15 billion ad impressions per month for hundreds of advertisers.