The Makegood is pleased to welcome Jayne Pimentel as a regular contributor. Look for her column every other Wednesday on The Makegood.
Jayne is the Head of Display Advertising at Razorfish London and originally from Silicon Valley. She works on driving digital strategy for brands globally and her experience spans from social media strategy for startups to digital media planning and buying in the US and UK. We recently spoke with Jayne about her current role and 2012 digital media trends.
The Makegood: Jayne, you started your career in digital media at Razorfish in the San Francisco office before moving to London. Can you tell us about what motivated you to make this move?
JP: London is like a second home for me. I spent a year completing graduate school here receiving my Masters in Digital Marketing. I always knew if given the chance that I wanted to work abroad. Razorfish presented me with the opportunity to join a developing Display team in the London office and I jumped at it. London is a fast-paced working environment like the States, which I like, but has a great work/life balance.
The Makegood: What would you say are the biggest differences between digital media in the US versus the UK?
JP: Everyone always says the UK market is a year or two behind the US. From my perspective, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the digital technologies are much more mature and mainstream in practice such as media agencies using trading desks in the States. However, the UK has more focus in the creative innovation rather than the technological innovation. What I mean is that the US (mainly the West coast), has their finger on the pulse of up and coming startups in the digital landscape focused on innovation around data, technology, and monetization being that they are within close proximity to the Silicon Valley. The UK market is more focused on delivering creative executions and collaborating from a user experience perspective, which you see with groups like TechHub and Digital Shoreditch emerging in the industry.
The Makegood: As Head of Display Media at Razorfish London, you focus on growing and shaping the display practice within Razorfish as well as the sister agencies within VivaKi. Can you tell us about what this entails?
JP: My background and expertise has been heavily influenced by my upbringing. I grew up in the Silicon Valley and most of my colleague and friend network works in digital in some capacity back home – from VCs to product leaders within consumer web startups. As a result, I’ve been very focused in integrating Vivaki’s offerings such as AOD, our trading desk, with our client’s digital strategies as well as connecting startups in the space with our media planning. I knowledge share within Razorfish as well as the sister agencies regarding technology innovations in mobile DSPs to the next gen startups trying to answer the fragmentation between buying cross social platforms. I guess you can define my role as a hybrid between digital media planning and business development.
The Makegood: What are the top trends that you are seeing in 2012 planning?
JP: Exchanges exploded onto the scene in 2011 for the UK market. I see mobile DSPs and next gen social buying as the big 2012 trends. We’re seeing a lot of great startups in the EMEA market offering mobile DSP solutions that actually deliver on RTB. At Razorfish London, we’re testing out how to integrate our Social team with our Media Planning team. Paid Social is becoming more and more apparent on our plans and should/need to go beyond just buying fans, but actually achieving a certain social ROI. I see a shift in the market from Brands just buying fans in bulk that then never return or interact with a Brand page to buying engagement (i.e. photo uploads, contest entries, comments, return visits, etc.).
The Makegood: Can you tell us about some campaigns that you are particularly proud from the last year?
JP: I’m very proud of my team with their development of all clients. Last year was a collective effort to get our clients more involved in emerging technologies that ultimately led to major efficiencies across the board. Moreover, we’ve really developed an offering that have brought onboard a few startup companies new to Display media. It’s one thing to plan for a big Brand, it’s quite another to plan for a startup that needs every impression to deliver a certain ROI and we’ve done very well in planning and executing campaigns for those clients.
The Makegood: Thanks, Jayne.
