IgnitionOne appoints Simon Haynes UK MD following buyout from Dentsu
IgnitionOne has appointed Digilant Media’s Simon Haynes as UK managing director following its management-led buyout from parent company Dentsu.
Haynes was UK managing director of Digliant Media, formerly known as Adnetik, for almost two years.
Haynes said the management buyout from Dentsu, which is also the parent company of Aegis Media, was one of the “motivators” that led to him taking the role.
“This opens up a lot of opportunity. It initially makes the company more mobile in a cultural sense, which is critical when you are dealing with what is essentially a technology proposition.
“The evolution and power behind that technology needs to be mobile because if you are reactive in this industry then you are behind the curve. So it enables the company to be proactive and as a result more interesting,” he said.
Haynes also believes independence is “critical”, both for cultural reasons but also the “cold hard commercial reality” as well.
“Inevitably over the next two to three years there is likely to be consolidation, what with the state of the economy and the digital media market, but independent movers within that can execute opportunities faster and more efficiently,” he said.
Haynes added that there is a lot of misinformation in the RTB space, and the result is that there is a need for more clarity and education to help advertisers better understand its value.
He compared the RTB space to the mobile sector, which was hailed as the “next big thing” back in 2004, but didn’t truly start realising its potential until the last few years.
“It’s the same for RTB, it’s three to four years old and it’s only really been over the last year that is has become a universal concern and people have started to think about it as part of their planning cycle.
“The result is that the rhetoric has reduced it to three-letter acronyms that no one really understands. As a result of that it needs more clarity, as to why, outside the cost savings, are you going to put money down that path and what is the best way to execute it,” he said.
Previously Haynes wrote a column for The Drum stating that the online ad industry is suffering from a “severe case of hellenologophilia” or in other words – a compulsive love of technical terms.
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