BuzzFeed appoints new marketing head in Mondelez’ Laura Henderson
BuzzFeed has appointed Mondelez’ Laura Henderson as its new marketing head following the departure of Frank Cooper last week, signaling challenging times at the snack food giant’s own content division as the digital publisher bolsters up its video offering.
Laura Henderson jumps from Mondelez to Buzzfeed
Laura Henderson, who was global head of content and media monetization at Mondelez, will join BuzzFeed in the newly created role of senior vice president of marketing, the Wall Street Journal reports.
She will report to BuzzFeed president Greg Coleman.
She replaces Frank Cooper, former chief marketing and creative officer, who left the digital publisher last week after a year and a half in the role, to join New York asset manager BlackRock.
Henderson's hire comes at a time when Buzzfeed is bolstering up its video arm, specifically its food brand Tasty, which it claims has become the largest food network in the world in less than 12 months.
First launched in the US, it has since revealed versions of the brand in the UK, France and Germany. The company claims 50% of all Americans see a Tasty video every month, and one in three Brits in the UK have watched a Proper Tasty video since it launched in December last year.
Last month NBCUniversal doubled their investment in BuzzFeed, bringing NBCUniversal’s stake in the site to $400m and putting BuzzFeed’s valuation at roughly $1.7bn. The latest funding will allow NBC and BuzzFeed to work more closely together on ad sales and digital video production.
Henderson's departure from Mondelez comes a few months after Bonin Bough, former chief media and e-commerce officer, also quite the snacks giant after a four year stint to take on a TV role with CNBC.
Bough, who first hired Henderson to head up the media monetization plan he devised, was responsible for pushing the brand to act more like a media owner and create content that is good enough to actually sell, by investing in its own content properties.
Now the brand has lost the two key figures responsible for this thinking. Furthermore, the appointment of Kraft Heinz Co’s Bob Rupczynski as head of global media and digital, to replace Bough, has seen the once closely linked marketing and e-commerce divisions separated.