Akamai Reports Q4, Startups Take Execs; Reckitt-Benckiser Wants More Digital; Yahoo! Shuffling Board

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Akamai Reports; CFO Leaves For HubSpot

Akamai announced its Q4 2011 performance and, though there was no mention of Akamai Advertising Solutions in the release, the company reported net income of $45 million on $324 million in revenues. Read more. Wall Street had expected $311 million and $40 million, respectively, according to Boston Business Journal. If Akamai wants to add to its ad tech stash, there’s plenty of cash laying around. From the release: “Full-year cash from operations of $453 million: year-end cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of over $1.2 billion.” Meanwhile, CFO J.D. Sherman is leaving for the COO role at marketing automation company HubSpot. Don’t worry CFO-lovers, Akamai had a new one waiting in the wings.

Accordant Adds CRO

And speaking of Akamai, Accordant Media announced that it has a new CRO, Garrett Vreeland. Read the release. Vreeland was “Sr. Director, Advertising Sales and Account Management at Akamai following media sales leadership roles at Right Media / Yahoo! and 24/7 Real Media.” The startup world appears to be playing its siren song at mature tech companies. Meanwhile, Accordant said that it ran it’s 3,000th RTB campaign in Q4 and claimed “bake-off” supremacy. Fighting words!

Large Pub Love

Mediamind said that it’s going to turn its rich media Unicast unit to full-time publisher development, known as “MediaMind Global Publisher Unit.” Former Unicast GM James Dillon will head the group as its SVP. The company says Unicast was always 100% focused on publishers and that, going forward, the client target for the publisher unit will be large publishers. Read the release. For buy-side tech providers and agencies, key, large publisher relationships again appear to be important to both. Large publishers are the new “Belle of the Ball.”

DSPs And The Element Level

Demand-side platform Simpli.fi’s Frost Prioleau preaches DSPs and retargeting to the search masses on SearchEngineLand. He invokes the words of IBM’s John Iwata and says it’s time for search marketers to get their arms around unstructured data and start targeting at the… element level (cue The Who!). Prioleau identifies the levels: “Keyword Level Search Retargeting, Keyword Based Contextual Targeting, Element Level Site Retargeting, and Element Level Behavioral Targeting.” Read the retargeting witch’s brew.

Data-Driven Brands

Another big marketer is reporting a shift in the way it spends marketing budgets. In this case, it has to do with measurement. Ad Age’s Jack Neff says Reckitt Benckiser CEO Rakesh Kapoor has outlined a new, data-driven way the company will be tracking its marketing investments: “By 2013, Mr. Kapoor said the company will stop talking to investors about media spending and instead focus on its ‘Brand Equity Index,’ which covers traditional media spending along digital and social media, medical professional programs and consumer educational programs.” Read it.

Digital Mag Ad Metrics

According to Folio, GfK MRI (GfK acquired Knowledge Networks in December) is rolling out a new ad effectiveness tool for “Tablets, eReaders and in electronic reproductions” from its Starch Research unit. Folio’s Ioanna Opidee writes, “Customized metrics will (…) be available, allowing marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of specific components of an ad, such as a video or photo gallery.” Read more. And, read the release.

Yahoo! Chair Exits

Roy Bostock is leaving as board chair at Yahoo!. Surely, this is all part of what Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson agreed to – or required – when he came aboard. BusinessWeek reports, “Alfred Amoroso, a former IBM executive who served as CEO of Rovi Corp., and Maynard Webb, EBay Inc.’s ex-COO, will join the board. Besides Bostock, directors Gary Wilson, Arthur Kern and Vyomesh Joshi won;t seek re-election.” Interesting… IBM and commerce-driven Ebay experience. Yahoo! may be preparing for a renewed focus on leveraging its data. Read more. Wall Street remains captivated by Yahoo!’s asian assets in the meantime.

GigaOm Acquires paidContent

Guardian’s paidContent confirmed that the media trade publication has been acquired by GigaOm. paidContent’s Ernie Sander and Staci Kramer made note of the opportunity with the new mothership, “At a time when so many content companies are groping for sustainable business models, GigaOM has a dynamic approach to making money. Its multiple revenue streams extend from site advertising to conferences to subscription products and beyond.” Read more on paidContent. And, GigaOm founder Om Malik’s take on the acquisition.

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