• by Larissa Faw , March 5, 2021

San Francisco-based Traction is continuing its pivot from a pure-play digital agency into a “marketing accelerator consultancy” with the naming of former vice president, marketing at Nordstrom, Brian Hovis, as senior partner, head of performance marketing.

Hovis will work with in-house marketing teams to tackle challenges ranging from brand-building to product and experience design.

Hovis brings a client-side perspective to the firm. He originally got to know Traction leaders while working with them at Intuit and became good friends with Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg. “I ran into him at a conference and heard that he was consulting,” says Kleinberg. “When he saw what we were doing, he recognized after being client-side so long, that we were solving some real problems for brands that agencies just haven’t been able to address.”

Traction developed the role specifically for Hovis. “While we’ve always been strong at branding, advertising and experience design, this now gives us a top-notch performance marketing capability,” adds Kleinberg. “One of the things we are trying to do is bring in client partners that are subject matter experts, not just relationship managers like agencies do.”

Hovis’ arrival coincides with the company announcing its most recent win as first-ever “Accelerator of Record” for Wristcam, a new camera band for Apple Watch. This partnership is designed to scale Wristcam’s entire operation, supporting execution on everything from their performance marketing to email to content to site design.