Bruce Falck has joined Google’s demand-side platform Invite Media and will be leading the charge for sales as the unit’s sales director. It’s a role much like others across Google’s corporate structure of ad tech products such as DoubleClick Ad Exchange (where Lexi Reese and Michael Rubenstein had a similar role devoted to the Exchange.).
Falck said he will be driving sales within Invite’s target market comprised of Agency Trading Desks. With his experience as a “Google insider” -he’s been at the company since 2006 including as head of Google Content Network – Falck thinks this will come in handy as Google resources continued to be poured into Invite’s rapidly growing business, which he says has grown 300% as measured by agency ad spend since the company was acquired.
With agencies as the Invite target, he made clear that it really does not matter what size the agency trading is, more about who the clients are and whether it’s a good fit for Invite Media.
When asked about going direct to the marketer, Falck indicated that Google’s Invite Media unit is also potentially open to large marketers who have the team in place to drive marketing strategy through a platform like Invite’s. But, Falck stressed that the key focus is agencies.
Looking down the road, Falck said that video and expandables are areas in which Invite Media will be growing beyond the standard display channel. Drawing from his experience at Google’s TV ads unit, Falck said that using a platform like Invite’s may be possible for TV in years to come but that it remains to be seen if inventory for TV will be biddable as addressable media still hasn’t quite come to TV and digital continues to eat away at TV budget.
Also, there are no plans to add a reserve component to Invite Media’s platform even as it was announced last week that Google Display Network had added a reserved (i.e. “guaranteed”) offering for marketers interested in securing display advertising in the future. A long-awaited, tighter integration with DFA remains on the roadmap for Invite, too.
Finally, in answer to how the Invite Media team looks today, Falck stressed co-founder Nat Turner’s role as a leader of the Invite Media product team as well as his ability to sell his group’s services which Falck said was typical of successful startup entrepreneurs who end up both selling and developing simultaneously.
By John Ebbert
