• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 2, 2010

GroupM's media and marketing services agency Maxus Worldwide on Wednesday named Helena Snowdon to the newly created position of marketing director.

Effective June 8, Snowdon will oversee all Maxus branding, marketing and communications efforts, both internally and externally. She will also work with the agency's Worldwide Business Development Director, Karen Kaufman, on new business development and pitch coordination -- especially for pitches run out of Europe.

Snowdon will be based in London and will report to Maxus Global CEO Kelly Clark. "She's smart, fun to work with, and gets things done," Clark said of Snowdon.

Most recently Snowdon served as Global Head of Marketing and Communications for Omnicom agency PHD in London.

Despite a difficult market, WPP Group's GroupM posted new global billings of $2.9 billion last year. Part of the new pipeline is Maxus, taking on the global UPS business, and Mindshare, now working for pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim in the U.S.

In March, GroupM sought to get a grip on online ad serving by cutting deals with two of the leading online ad verification services, AdSafe and DoubleVerify.

While the current generation of online ad verification systems generally post where buys have been placed after the fact, the newer applications being developed by AdSafe, DoubleVerify, and others alert agencies and marketers when their ads are about to be placed adjacent to unsavory content, including porn, hate speech, or content that competes or conflicts with a brand's message.

By tapping the ad verification services, GroupM was also hoping to address geographic campaign discrepancies.

Previously, Snowdon spent nearly five years on the global new business team at sister agency Mindshare Worldwide in London, where she worked on business development, marketing, knowledge management and brand communications.