• by OMMA Magazine Writers , April 2, 2008

An online press release with a hot-pink background trumpeted the imminent arrival of Dr. Kiumarse Zamanian to Glam Media in early February. The fluorescent color alone was enough to catch our attention, but Zamanian's transition to Glam, after a tenure at Yahoo that began in 2004, kept it. At Yahoo, Zamanian lead the new product team that oversaw the likes of targeting and predicting inventory for the advertisements featured on Yahoo. At Glam, he serves as vice president of Glam Evolution, which the company touts as the first-ever ad platform for premium inventory on all of the Internets. But no hard feelings, Yahoo; Zamanian and his family still stick with the service for their e-mail and news, though his daughter's more a fan of Disney's clubpenguin.com. He's quick to add that his daughter "also loves hot pink, so glam.com will be an attractive destination in a few years." And, for the record, his name is pronounced Q-mars Zamaani-yaan. So there's no excuse to get it wrong.

Why did you join Glam?
>> I was primarily drawn to Glam Media because of its small yet focused teams and the high level of innovation and urgency associated with defining and developing this platform. The Glam Evolution ad platform is poised to help transform branded display advertising on the Web. In cooperation with other industry leaders and organizations, Glam is also working to define new standards to improve measurement and optimization of online brand advertising campaigns.

As display advertising becomes more sophisticated, brands will look for online ad opportunities that more closely rival the contextual benefits and richness of print or TV advertising. The challenge is to define simple yet powerful models that offer advertisers a more holistic view of their user-centric ad campaigns based on success metrics that go way beyond clicks and conversions. Glam Media is working to move beyond the click to create a measurement of effectiveness that works for brand advertising. Brands should demand new measurements to gauge brand impact of Web advertising.

Translate the following sentence from Glam's press release: "Zamanian pioneered and directed the Informatica Developer Network as a global Web-based ecosystem for collaborative development of interoperable data integration solutions."
>> I created a global online community for those who wanted to extend the Informatica products and services for data transformation and integration applications. Through this program's Web site (devnet.informatica.com), developers could learn about and use various types of application programming interfaces (API) and sample programs to develop their own add-on products and services. Through on-line discussion forums, webinars and conferences, Informatica and its developer community could in turn share and market their knowledge and offerings all over the globe.

Will you be working out of Brisbane or New York or both? What's the best place for a business lunch?
>> I am working at the Brisbane office and although we have an amazing waterview that is great for a head-clearing walk, the only place to eat lunch is the cafeteria in the building next door.

Where does targeting go next?
>> Effective targeting will deliver highly relevant and personalized ads without compromising user privacy. Targeting will also be available uniformly and consistently across various media and devices, so a user will see relevant ads on her laptop, mobile device, IP TV and perhaps special devices attached to store shopping carts/baskets.

What is the most annoying new online trend?
>> Perhaps too many ways to network and connect with friends, colleagues or people with common interests. It's wonderful technology but we need to come up with our own filtering skills to make sure it doesn't overwhelm.