O2-owned mobile marketing arm Weve promotes Nigel Clarkson to MD
Mobile marketing proposition Weve has promoted Nigel Clarkson to the role of managing director, following its takeover by O2.
Clarkson, who was previously commercial director, will take up his new role with immediate effect, reporting to Robert Franks, MD of O2 Commerce.
In his new role he will lead a restructure of the Weve business, with the view to aligning operational synergies with O2 and helping integrate the Weve business.
The news marks one of the first appointment changes since O2 bought out EE and Vodafone’s stakes in the former joint venture. At the time of the announcement, O2’s digital director David Plumb told The Drum that the move to take control of Weve had no correlation to the proposed sale of O2 to Hutchison Whampoa. He also pledged that O2 will grow the Weve business “ten-fold” in the coming years,
Clarkson previously ran the commercial, marketing and ad ops functions for the digital sales team at Weve. Commenting on his appointment Clarkson said it is a “hugely exciting” time for Weve given it can now move faster in the market with one "agile and ambitious" owner, which has already pooled data from other areas of its digital disciplines to raise the opted-in customers to over 30 million.
“Weve has been a rewarding and challenging experience for all who shared the last three years together. We started from scratch and have succeeded in building one of the UK’s leading digital media businesses, covering areas as diverse as mobile marketing, advertising, data, payments, loyalty, and trialing beacon technology. While the original blueprint for Weve has now changed, the vision of all the things that could and should be possible through mobile advertising will be accelerated by this deal,” said Clarkson.
Franks added: “Weve has built a highly successful and innovative mobile advertising business under Nigel’s leadership as commercial director. We see huge potential to accelerate the growth of Weve’s business as part of O2’s Digital Commerce portfolio. Nigel’s experience, passion and expertise makes him the perfect choice to lead the business forward as MD and I’m looking forward to working with him further in his new role.”
The Weve brand will remain for the short term, but O2 has not ruled out a rebrand later at a later date once other O2 digital assets such as Wifi and Priority have been integrated.