News Corp appoints Cameron King to lead programmatic, confirms exit from joint exchange
Cameron King
News Corp Australia has appointed a new commercial head of platforms and products Cameron King.
The move comes after the departure of head of commercial development Jason Barnes and director of commercial and product development Les Wigan who moved to Fox Sports in February. The pair were leading figures in News Corp’s push into programmatic and shortly after their departure News announced its withdrawal from the publishers exchange.
King has been appointed to the role, expanding his responsibilities as News Corp’s head of commercial innovation to also manage News’ automated trading platform.
He will report to Neil Robertson, digital director of sales and strategy for News Corp Australia.
The publishers exchange was set to be a joint programmatic trading venture between News Corp, Fairfax, Mi9 and Yahoo!7 that would take on the might of Google’s programmatic buying offering and wrest ad dollars from the search giant.
However News Corp pulled out in February following a hold-up in its arrival and changes in the market conditions, including the arrival of the Mail Online as a new competitor in a joint venture with Mi9.
The plans had been already been on the ropes following Yahoo!7’s withdrawal after launching its own offering in July 2013, although market speculation suggested the joint venture might have been revived when new CEO Ed Harrison and sales director Paul Sigaloff arrive at the middle of this year from Fairfax.
Robinson said News has developed a strong digital programmatic trading offering with Rubicon Project its official programmatic trading provider. And King’s operational experience across News’ pricing, product and inventory management will make him an “immense asset” as the company continues to build its marketplace capability.
“Over the last few years News has developed a strong digital programmatic trading offering,” Robinson said.
“We are now well placed to accelerate our offer to market and provide our customers with greater time efficiency and transparency on real time delivery in order to increase our share of this rapidly growing market.”
According to SMI data, the automated trading market equated to 10 per cent of all digital revenues in FY13 and increased to almost 12 per cent in FY14, News Corp maintains.
Yesterday Telstra revealed how it plans to put 80 per cent of its digital marketing spend through programmatic platforms by June this year.
King said: “News is building a strong position in data and combined with the smart use of programmatic technology, I’m confident News will continue to be a leading way for brands looking to engage with targeted audiences at mass. In addition to further advancing commercial innovation across platforms, I look forward to leading News’ efforts in the programmatic space.”
King joined News as a digital ad products manager in 2008 to build and develop News’ digital rich media production capabilities. He was promoted to News’ head of ad products and pricing in 2011, taking responsibility for the development of digital advertising products, vendor management and inventory pricing. He was made head of commercial innovation in 2012, and then had commercial responsibility for News’ digital advertising products including data, rich media, video and mobile.
Prior to News he worked in various product and marketing roles at St George Bank, ANZ Banking Group and American Express.
Cam is a brilliant operator, smart, savvy and professional. Under his guidance the News trading platform will start kicking some serious goals. Neil and Cam will make a formidable team.
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Congrats Cam, you’ll stand tall in the area of programmatic trading, you’ll carry Neil on your shoulders…
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Nice one Cam! Well deserved.
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Great move — Cam is a fantastic operator. (By the way, I think he will be reporting to Neil Robinson, not Neil Robertson…)
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Cam is a smart cookie – good move by News!
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