ITV hires Google’s Sarah Speake to lead commercial marketing

ITV has hired one of Google’s top UK marketers Sarah Speake to oversee the marketing of the broadcaster to advertisers and agencies.

ITV
Sarah Speake’s appointment follows the rebrand of ITV in January.

Speake will join later this year as director of commercial marketing and research. In addition to B2B marketing duties, she has also been charged with leading “detailed, value-led research projects”.

Prior to taking up her most recent role as Google UK’s strategic marketing director, leading the marketing of its advertising solutions and tools, she held several senior positions at the media giant including a stint as technology sales director. Before Google, she worked at ad solutions firm VNU Global Media and Carat Business.

ITV overhauled its channel brands in January, dropping ‘1’ from flagship brand ITV and redesigning the logos of ITV2 to 4, in a bid to better communicate the difference between the offerings to advertisers and audiences.

The rebrand had no immediate impact in terms of ad revenues, which fell 3 per cent in the six months to 30 June. Third quarter revenue, however is expected to be up 9 per cent because of increased spend by telecoms giants BT and BSkyB ahead of the football season.

ITV’s group marketing director Rufus Radcliffe, who Speake will report to, says her hire is “key” as it looks to “consolidate and build upon the advances made” since the rebrand.

Speake replaces Paul Gilshan, who left to take on the top marketing job at Freesat in January.   

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