Catalina Marketing Goes Digital, Taps Former Google Exec To Lead Effort

Catalina Marketing, a dominant player in the so-called "shopper media" industry used by consumer packaged goods marketers to affect sales at retail, is making a major push into digital media, and has tapped former Google executive Chris Henger to lead the effort.

Henger. Henger , who previously ran Google's affiliate network, was named executive vice president-digital services at Catalina, and will focus on emerging digital media.

Catalina said digital media is a logical extension of its core business, which includes a massive in-store network comprised of 90 million households and 300 million individual shoppers' weekly transactions.

The move follows a recent joint venture Catalina struck with Nielsen Co. that will augment its in-store shopping data with consumer media exposure data from Nielsen's various media panels, including online, and is considered the most viable "single-source" option for consumer packaged goods marketers since Nielsen and Arbitron shuttered their ambitious Apollo Project.

Henger served as a member of the executive team at Performics, an interactive marketing firm specializing in search and affiliate marketing, which was acquired by DoubleClick in 2004, and which was sold to Publicis in 2008. Henger had played a key role in integrating DoubleClick Performics with Google's affiliate network launch.

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