JWP Connatix might not have a new name yet, but it does have a new CEO.
On Monday, the newly merged company – the combination of video monetization platforms JW Player and Connatix – announced the appointment of John Nardone as chief executive officer.
Dave Otten, JW Player’s co-founder and former CEO, is stepping away from day-to-day operations, but will continue to be an advisor to the company.
Back in town
Nardone is no stranger to digital advertising.
As president and global head of media at digital agency Modern Media, he helped place the first-ever ads on the internet in 1994. He also served as CEO of [x+1], the data management and demand-side platform that was acquired by Rocket Fuel in 2014.
Following a brief stint at Rocket Fuel, he spent just over six years as CEO of ad server Flashtalking, which was bought by Mediaocean in 2021. After two years as president of Mediaocean, he left in 2023 and took some time off to travel the world with his family.
But he found himself eager to “get back in the game,” he told AdExchanger
While working with several private equity firms to find his next opportunity, he met a few investors from Court Square Capital, which owns a controlling stake in Connatix.
“Before I knew it, here I was,” Nardone said.
On paper, this is Nardone’s first video-specific endeavor, although he had plenty of experience with video at Mediaocean and Flashtalking, which integrated JW Player into its ad server.
CTV and online video are big growth areas for online advertising, said Nardone. But both also create unique challenges for publishers, streamers and other content owners, which must compete with the walled gardens for viewer attention and ad dollars.
Now that the merger between Connatix and JW Player is almost complete and JWP Connatix is six months into the integration process, the combined business can offer scale and begin to invest in further innovation, Nardone said.
Going automatic
One potential avenue for innovation is artificial intelligence, which aligns with investment plans Otten spoke about with AdExchanger when news of the merger first broke.
AI makes it “easier, cheaper and faster to create new content than it’s ever been before,” Nardone said, “and so we’re seeing an explosion of quality video content.”
Which is not to say JWP Connatix plans to generate its own content, an activity best left to creators.
Rather, Nardone said, AI can be used to manage, optimize and distribute content, regardless of format or medium – which is very different than in the early days of digital advertising. Marketers would have to manually resize ads for each individual publisher before standardized creative specifications became commonplace – specs that Nardone himself helped write as a founding board member of the IAB.
Now that there are so many different screen and display sizes for phones, laptops, TVs and other devices, it makes more sense to “automate that process so the burden doesn’t fall on the advertiser or the agency to figure that all out,” Nardone said.
A transformational moment
Going forward, Nardone said he plans to aggressively grow the JWP Connatix business and find new opportunities to achieve profitability, not just for the company but for its publisher clients.
But Nardone’s top priority in the short term is to ensure the merger continues as smoothly as possible, including giving JWP Connatix’s employees in the US and Europe the time and space to adjust to all the changes over the past six months.
Changes including a rebrand – eventually. Nardone said he hasn’t had the opportunity yet to dig into JWP Connatix’s market research for a new name.
“There’s a lot of work there that I have to catch up with before I can even have an opinion!” he said.
