Jeff Levick

In his new role, Levick will be responsible for Platform-A, AOL’s advertising business as well as developing global revenue strategies. While at Google, Levick was VP of Industry Development and Marketing. He will report to AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong who joined the company from Google on April 1.

The hiring of Levick means Greg Coleman, President of Platform-A since early February will be leaving the company.

"Our goal at AOL is to create great content and products, as well as make our advertising offerings the best in the industry for marketers and we are putting together the strategy to achieve that," said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.

"I’ve worked with Jeff for more than seven years at Google, and he is absolutely the right person to drive growth in our premium ad sales, dramatically scale our Advertising.com business, and further develop AOL’s research initiatives and consumer insights."

Time Warner saw its AOL unit revenue fall 23 percent last quarter. In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner indicated that it will likely spin off AOL to its shareholders though no final decision had been made.

"Greg Coleman is perfectly suited to build on the foundation we created at Platform-A and drive branded display sales across our fast-growing MediaGlow programming network," said Randy Falco, AOL Chairman and CEO.

Greg Coleman
President, Platform-A

"Greg’s a seasoned sales pro who understands that online brand building is the next frontier in digital advertising, and that whoever can deliver marketers measurably improved branding online will be positioned for long-term success."

Coleman replaces Lynda Clarizio, the former President of Advertsing.com who was chosen to lead the integration of Platform-A. Under Clarizio, AOL was able to consolidate and integrate the seven companies that make up Platform-A.

"Lynda helped us realize the vision for Platform-A as the world’s largest, unified display advertising platform with the most comprehensive suite of marketing solutions," said Falco. "We are enormously grateful for her work and success."

Before joining Platform-A, Coleman was President and CEO of NetSeer, a start-up company focused on search and ad targeting. Prior to that, he was EVP of Global Sales at Yahoo.

"I thought long and hard about jumping back into the media and sales world. The only way I would do it is with a company that has everything it needs to deliver what advertisers need most, particularly in difficult economic times – productive, efficient and measurable ways to reach increasingly fragmented audiences with their brand messages. AOL is that company," said Coleman.

Coleman will report to AOL President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Grant.

The agreement marks the first time that Bloomberg Television has provided business and financial videos to a site other than Bloomberg.com. During weekdays, AOL Money & Finance will feature 20 new video clips from Bloomberg Television.

AOL says the partnership with Bloomberg will allow advertisers to reach across AOL and Bloomberg Television with a single campaign. Advertising on the site will be sold via AOL’s digital advertising business, Platform-A, which offers display advertising, video advertising and content-targeted links.

"Bloomberg has earned its reputation for outstanding coverage of the business and financial world, and we’re excited to be the first financial site, other than Bloomberg.com, to carry its video content," said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL Money & Finance, News, Sports, Weblogs and KOL.

"With the addition of Bloomberg to our video portfolio, coupled with the other improvements we’ve made to the Money & Finance site, we can provide users and advertisers a comprehensive and engaging place to get their financial news and information."

AOL Money & Finance has more than 14.8 million unique visitors per month and is the top business site in terms of page views and total visits, according to comScore Media Metrix, August 2008.
 

BidPlace, as it’s called, was announced today, and is supposed to act as a gift to advertisers who would like to serve themselves.  They’ll be able to bid on and manage inventory across a number of sites belonging to AOL and its partners, and should receive detailed reports concerning ads’ performance.

Lynda Clarizio, the president of Platform-A, explained in a statement, "BidPlace unleashes the industry’s most powerful advertising technologies and puts them in the hands of advertisers.  This is the next step in Platform-A’s efforts to provide marketers a unified solution for brand advertising at scale and performance advertising across multiple media."

Also, "BidPlace gives advertisers what they’ve been asking for – a more accessible and transparent approach and an ability to adjust the dials to get the best results."

BidPlace will go up against similar exchanges provided by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, though, so any sort of widespread popularity is hardly assured.  Other circumstances beyond its control (see the half-jokes in paragraph one) will play a big role in its success or failure, too.

The key goals here relate to user friendliness and control.  An official release explains, "Platform-A is introducing a groundbreaking ‘inventory partitioning’ solution that lets publishers dictate exactly how inventory is distributed across multiple networks. . . .  Publishers can assign specific percentages of their inventory to be allocated based on any combination of ad network, subject area, location and more."

Lynda Clarizio, the president of Platform-A, then stated, "Today’s launch makes it easier than ever for publishers to monetize their ad inventory."  She also noted the contributions of Third Screen Media, an old acquisition.

Mobile advertising hasn’t really gone mainstream, but it remains an area people point to as the next big thing.  By making an early impact, Platform-A is positioning AOL – or the buyer of its advertising and content business – to have a chance at taking the lead over major would-be competitors like Google.

The Advertising.com Third Screen Media Mobile Network claims to already be delivering over 800 million impressions per month.

In March, page views on AOL’s programming sites (Money & Finance, News, Sports, Health and others) increased 28 percent and are up 35 percent year over year, with unique visitors growing 11 percent year over year to 56.5 million.

AOL says its growth is due to rebranding and redesigning its vertical Web sites. "Our strong growth is a direct result of rebuilding each and every one of our vertical web sites over the past 12 months with the goal of providing consumers highly relevant and rich experiences," said Bill Wilson, Executive Vice President of AOL Vertical Programming.

A host of AOL sites are now leaders in their categories, including AIM, MapQuest, AOL Music, Black Voices, StyleList and TMZ, based on unique visitors. AOL Money & Finance, Real Estate, Moviefone, Women, Health and AOL Latino are in the top three.

According to comScore, Platform-A was the No.1 advertising network, reaching 170,537 million unique visitors in March, close to 91 percent of all users in the U.S. Yahoo reached 85 percent and Google 81 percent, according to the report.
 

 AOL Lays Off Around 100 Employees

"A source . . . puts the number of layoffs at ‘less than 500,’ and says the severance packages stink," according to Henry Blodget.  "AOL describes the firings as a mere ‘alignment,’ suggests today is not the only day, and says the number is only 100."

Hurray for corporate-speak.  Either way, the development implies that all the layoffs leading up to this point may not have had their desired effect.

Another troubling detail: even though Platform A is supposed to be AOL’s biggest (and perhaps last) success story, the cuts come from within that unit.  Alignments of thriving operations aren’t supposed to entail ending one hundred or more jobs.  It wouldn’t be surprising if additional layoffs are on the way, either.

AOL’s not completely in emergency mode, however, and anyone needing proof can look to its recent acquisition of Sphere as evidence.  Sphere’s price remains unknown, but our own David Utter classified it as "a desirable takeover target."

AOL’s Platform-A reaches over 90 percent of the US Internet-surfing population, gaining over 170 million visitors in March 2008. The assessment of the top 15 US ad networks by measurement firm comScore found Platform-A ahead of Yahoo and Google, respectively.

Yahoo’s ad network reached 160 million visitors in March, while Google picked up 152 million. “Each of the top 15 ad networks delivered ads to at least half of the total U.S. Internet audience in March, making them very effective reach-building vehicles for advertisers,” comScore said.

The figures from comScore cast AOL and Yahoo in a different light than the sometimes-negative news about the companies. Despite operational and management woes, both online companies pull in hundreds of millions of ad visitors.

Those levels of traffic may be in jeopardy now that Google officially added DoubleClick to its business. Google’s need to diversify its multi-billion dollar business beyond contextual ads led to its $3.24 billion acquisition of DoubleClick for its display advertising capabilities.

The Internet Marketing Observations blog suggested reach was overrated as a determination of an ad network’s effectiveness. Performance, not reach, will be the more substantial proof of how well an ad network, Platform-A or otherwise, succeeds for its advertising clients.