Meadows-Klue rejoins IAB Europe as chief executive

Danny Meadows-Klue, co-founder and former chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the UK, is to attempt to reproduce the IAB UK’s success in driving the growth of UK online advertising across Europe in a new role at the IAB Europe.

Meadows-Klue has been appointed chief executive of IAB Europe, and will divide his time between London and Brussels.

He handed over the reins at the IAB UK to former Vodafone head of advertising Guy Phillipson in January (MW January 6). At the same time, he resigned as president of IAB Europe. However, his successor as president of IAB Europe, Layla Pavone, managing director of Aegis Group’s Isobar Communications, has asked him to come back as chief executive.

While it is “officially” a non-executive role, industry insiders say that online advertising in other European countries is at a much earlier stage of development than in the UK and expect Meadows-Klue to play a major role in driving IAB Europe’s future strategy.

v The news of Meadows-Klue’s new role comes as the IAB UK releases figures for the growth of online advertising in the second half of 2004. According to the the IAB, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), online advertising expenditure in 2004 was &£653.3m, a year-on-year increase of 60 per cent.

Online spend represented 3.9 per cent of all advertising expenditure in the UK in 2004, overtaking radio on 3.8 per cent. Online ad revenues are now more than four times bigger than they were at the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.

Overall, online bucked the general advertising trend – total UK expenditure rose just 5.8 per cent in 2004 to &£16.9bn (Advertising Association/WARC).