• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 7, 2009

Ex-Google executive Tom Phillips has taken over as CEO of social ad targeting company Media6Degrees, replacing co-founder Joe Doran.

Doran, a former Microsoft executive who had served as CEO of the New York-based startup since May 2008, will remain as an advisor to the company's board of directors.

Phillips most recently led Google's search and analytics division and was responsible for overseeing the integration of DoubleClick as well as the search giant's short-lived effort to transform newspaper print advertising.

Phillips was previously CEO of Deja.com and co-founder and publisher of Spy magazine. His roots in the online industry go back to Starwave Corp. in the early 1990s, where he helped launch sites including ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, NFL.com and NBA.com.

In advertising that taps the social graph, Phillips sees the next big thing. "The whole area of using affinity data as a new basis for targeting in advertising is the next huge opportunity in digital media," he said in an interview Wednesday.

Media6Degrees, and competitors such as 33Across and Lotame, attempt to target consumers based on their connections via social networks. The idea is that once a company defines its best customers, it can mine that affinity data to find others who are just as likely to buy a service or product.

Phillips suggested that social targeting holds enormous promise for brands that have not been able to crack the code on search marketing in categories like financial services, travel and retail. "We've got lots of potential digital dollars not being spent right now, and marketing plans not getting executed with an eye to where consumers are going," he said.

Among his priorities is expanding the company's approximately 30-person staff, starting with hiring more engineering talent. Media6Degrees this spring raised a first-round venture financing of $9.8 million led by U.S. Venture Partners.

Earlier this year, it entered into a partnership with Havas Digital to develop ad solutions to advance the agency's development of its Virtual Brand Network for Advertisers.