CCO Americas Appoints Wade Rifkin As Senior VP Programmatic
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
NewYork-based Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc., today announced that Wade Rifkin has joined the company as senior vice-president of programmatic, a newly created position.
Reporting to Scott Wells, CCO Americas CEO, Rifkin will define the company’s programmatic strategy and lead the execution and management of the company’s programmatic approach.
He joins CCOA from ShareThis, the social data platform, where he was vice-president of programmatic partnerships.
In this new role, Rifkin will pilot the development of significant partnerships with data providers and ad technology companies to bring programmatic out-of-home offerings to buy-side advertising partners.
CCOA’s hiring of Rifkin is the OOH company’s latest move toward a sophisticated programmatic offer that streamlines OOH buying and maximizes ROI. Rifkin joins CCOA following the company’s launch of Clear Channel Outdoor RADAR, its new suite of research, data and analytics tools to help advertisers and advertising agencies more effectively plan and buy CCOA media to reach target audiences and measure the impact of their OOH campaigns.
“Clear Channel Outdoor Americas is executing aggressively against its strategy of offering marketing partners innovative solutions – particularly through digital and mobile enabled products – that change the way brands think about OOH and how we can help them reach their target audiences,” says Wells. “Developing a compelling programmatic platform is an important part of our strategy to make out-of-home easier to buy and a more integral part of a brand’s purchasing decisions. Wade brings an impressive breadth of experience in digital marketing that includes a strong background in developing programmatic solutions geared for measurable and meaningful success, and we’re very excited to have him on our team.”
Rifkin will work closely with CCOA’s technology, marketing and sales operations teams to ensure the ad tech and data infrastructure successfully supports the needs of programmatic buyers. He will identify new market requirements, define and execute CCOA’s audience strategy and develop new ways to package OOH inventory for programmatic buying.
At ShareThis, Rifkin was responsible for identifying new opportunities to bring the ShareThis data set to market through business development across the programmatic landscape. Before ShareThis, he was vice-president of programmatic at DigitasLBi_US where he established their Programmatic practice across the U.S. and North America. Rifkin was also vice-president and group media director for Digitas where he led two digital media teams and directed various American Express-branded initiatives. Previously in his career, Rifkin held positions at Wieden + Kennedy and Moxie Interactive.
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 650,000 displays in over 35 countries across five continents, including 43 of the 50 largest markets in the United States. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings offers many types of displays across its global platform to meet the advertising needs of its customers. This includes a growing digital platform that now offers over 1,050 digital billboards across 29 U.S. markets. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings’ International segment operates in 22 countries across Asia, Australia and Europe in a wide variety of formats.
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