Brandon Starkoff Will Oversee Global Agency & Brand Relationships from the Midwest
NEW YORK AND LONDON – As location continues to draw greater interest and ad spend around the world, xAd continues to expand its talent and operations. Berg Insights predicts that geotargeting will become “ubiquitous” in mobile advertising worldwide, and BIA/Kelsey estimates that mobile will comprise over 11% of total local media spend by 2019 – with location representing a multi-billion dollar industry. xAd, the global location marketplace, continues to scale international operations and leadership, adding an advertising industry veteran and country support for Spain and Italy to accommodate increased interest from global and regional marketers and agencies.
In Western Europe, consumer adoption is driving marketers to shift ad budgets to mobile. eMarketer estimates that by 2018 mobile’s share of digital ad spend across Western Europe will climb from 24% to over 60%. Furthermore, an IAB Europe survey of top agencies cited location-based advertising as the mobile advertising trend that agencies were most familiar with, and 7 in 10 respondents shared that they have shifted budgets from other media to mobile. In just over a year, xAd has gained momentum in Europe, expanding from the UK to covering the Europe’s top five advertising markets – UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy – under the management of Theo Theodorou, xAd’s Head of EMEA.
As demand for location technology and expertise continues in advertising, xAd continues to also expand its global sales leadership team with the addition of Brandon Starkoff, an agency veteran with nearly two decades of experience, most recently as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Starcom Worldwide. For the past 16 years, Brandon worked at Starcom Media Group (SMG) as an early driver of mobile technology and advertising, establishing SMG’s Mobile Center of Excellence and working with device manufacturers and service providers. As VP of Global Brands and Agencies based in Chicago, Brandon will leverage his experience to drive strategy and relationships with global agencies and marketers that maximize growth opportunities in mobile advertising and location-based insights.
Dipanshu “D” Sharma, CEO of xAd, shared, “xAd continues to drive innovation in location, creating a new, standalone category in marketing. Since the start of the year, xAd has attracted top-caliber talent, released industry-first technology, and surpassed all performance milestones. With Brandon on board and our expansion into Spain and Italy, xAd is enabling global, regional and national advertisers to leverage the context of location at scale to create meaningful mobile advertising experiences for marketers and consumers alike.”
About xAd
xAd is the global location marketplace that uses the context of location to create meaningful mobile advertising experiences. Our patented technology platform identifies where someone is or has been with precision and at scale, enabling marketers to use these insights to drive in-store traffic and sales. xAd’s global location marketplace allows nearly 1 million advertisers to reach 300 million unique devices in 300 billion mobile moments each month. Connect with xAd at www.xad.com, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
