VIRGINIA: America Online the world's leading interactive services company has announced that Lisa Brown has been appointed Executive VP, Interactive Marketing. Her job will involve overseeing AOL's ad sales activity. She will report to AOL's Vice Chairman and President, Core Service, Ted Leonsis.
Brown joined AOL in November as Executive VP of the newly created marketing strategy and solutions group. She succeeds Robert Sherman, who left the company last week.
Since joining AOL, Brown has been responsible for crafting advertising strategy and enhancing advertising revenue and operational capabilities for the AOL service and America Online's Web properties. Under her leadership, Interactive Marketing has worked closely with programming to align the needs of AOL's members and marketing partners. These teams worked collaboratively to create a suite of offers for advertisers, including larger, standard advertising inventory; calendarised sponsorships and promotions; new opportunities in high-value areas such as the Welcome Screen; and more robust rich media and targeting capabilities.
Brown said, "I'm very excited about this opportunity. Advertising -- across any media -- should build awareness and drive transactions, and online advertising very cost-effectively accomplishes both objectives. The interactive marketing group at AOL is singularly focused on addressing advertisers' needs and providing partners with an efficient and effective way to reach consumers. We've made solid progress already, and I look forward to working closely with our partners and the Interactive Marketing team to continue to evolve and enhance the online advertising experience."
AOL Chairman and CEO Jon Miller said, "Lisa Brown is the right person, with the right skills, to lead our advertising sales efforts. In just the few months Lisa has been at AOL, she has demonstrated her innovative thinking, industry expertise, partner focus and, most important, her ability to get results. I've worked with Lisa for a number of years, and I know that she will be a great asset to AOL in her new role and will build on the progress we have made in turning around our advertising sales."
"Bob Sherman did a very good job leading our sales group through a challenging time and putting in place the foundation off which we are able to build a scalable and sustainable ad business. We're now in the advertising game, and I'm confident we'll continue to grow advertising going forward."
