DoubleClick poaches O&M chief

DoubleClick, the US-based Internet ad sales company, has hired Ogilvy & Mather’s Andy Mitchell to head its drive to become Britain’s leading selling point for online advertising.

DoubleClick, the US-based Internet ad sales company, has hired Ogilvy & Mather’s Andy Mitchell to head its drive to become Britain’s leading selling point for online advertising.

Mitchell, currently development director of O&M’s digital communications division in London, joins DoubleClick as managing director of its London office in November.

CompuServe UK sales manager Paul Castro has also been recruited by DoubleClick for the same role. He joins a team of seven working out of London.

Barry Salzman, vice-president of DoubleClick, says Mitchell’s job will be to “visit every leading Website operator in the UK” and win sales business from them.

The move will place DoubleClick in direct competition with other Internet sales houses including EMAP Online, TSMSi, and New Media Marketing & Sales, which already seek to sell Internet advertising across networks of UK Websites.

DoubleClick is already the dominant player in the US in offering banner advertising across networks of Websites.

It is believed that the firm may handle between ten and 20 per cent of US Internet ad revenue, delivering an aggregated total of 1 billion ad impressions a month across 70 US sites.

The firm is also offering to cannibalise cross-boarder Web traffic on its sites to sell audiences back from foreign-based sites to their domestic advertisers.

“A third or more of traffic on some leading UK sites comes from abroad, which to UK advertisers represents wastage if you are paying for them to see banner ads,” says Salzman.

“Many UK Internet users may spend 60 to 70 per cent of their time browsing non-UK Websites. We can already offer 12 million page impressions a month hitting UK ‘eyeballs’ back to UK advertisers, which we have identified on US and other non-UK sites,” he adds.