Los Angeles-based ad shop Mistress launching an office in Hamburg, Germany via a partnership with freiheit.com, the Hamburg-based Internet and software company. The new venture, which has been dubbed Mistress.tech, will focus on creating software and marketing platforms for brands. Charter clients include DPD (Dynamic Parcel Distribution), one of the leading international express and parcel service providers and the City of Hamburg’s marketing division. For the latter, Mistress.tech is creating an application to monitor and activate social happenings and events in the city. “Mistress.tech enables Mistress to work more globally as clients have requested our approach overseas,” said Christian Jacobsen, Partner at Mistress. “We are bringing new technological approaches and solutions and top software development talent to a new set of European clients and also to our US customer base.” The new venture will be overseen by two Managing Directors including Boris de Malvinsky, a founding Partner and former Managing Director of kempertrautmann GmbH (now Thjnk). Hartmut Heinrich, an innovations strategist and formerly a Partner at Vivaldi Partners Group will partner with de Malvinsky in running the new shop. They will oversee a team of freiheit.com technology and software developers who will work closely with Mistress’ strategists and creatives to build custom, proprietary marketing programs. Stefan Richter, founder and Chief Technology Officer of freiheit.com, will serve on Mistress.tech’s Board of Directors along with Jens Stoelkin, Partner at Mistress. “Software first, that’s our approach,” Stoelkin. “We bring in the developers at the front end of the marketing process. This is a true merger of freiheit.com’s technology prowess and Mistress’ unparalleled consumer insight and creativity.”
California newspaper publishing vet Shanna Cannon has been named regional publisher of E.W. Scripps' Ventura County Star. She moves into the larger circulation newspaper publishing role from publisher of Scripps-owned Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif. Cannon, who rejoined Scripps in 2006 after a three-year stint as president and publisher of The Garden Island in Kauai, Hawaii, also held senior publishing roles at Pulitzer Inc., including two years as general manager of the Santa Maria Times, in Santa Maria, Calif. Cannon, who grew up in California’s Central Coast region, began her newspaper career at Scripps Telegram-Tribune in San Luis Obispo, where she rose to become national and major accounts manager.
Los Angeles-based ad tech firm Spreeify has launched a cloud-based mobile and display advertising platform it claims can "maximize click-through, conversion, and engagement" by looking at "social referrals, retargeting and other technology optimize real-time bidding." Spreeify says its customers include JustFab, Gaiam, Papyrus, etnies, Journeys and Adobe.“Though the size of the display advertising market continues to grow, the click-through, conversion and engagement rates still remain low (average click-through rate is .1% (10 clicks for every 10,000 impressions)),” states Spreeify CEO, Ruben Dua. “The Spreeify Advertising Platform thwarts these poor metrics by leveraging the most powerful forms of engagement marketing and optimizing campaigns based on success data.”
Long-time music industry marketing vet Randy Malinoff has joined Pasadena-based music marketing agency DMI Music & Media as executive vice president-global digital business. In that role, he will develop digital marketing opportunities around DMI’s Engine 1 Music platform, including two new applications: “music-integrated email;” and “private label” digital radio for brands. Prior to joining DMI, Malinoff led the direct-to-consumer business for Universal Music Group.