Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) is forming a new Commercial Innovation group to help advertisers create customised, content-led campaigns that reach beyond existing online advertising inventory to take better advantage of new digital and social media touch points being generated by its brands, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.

The group will work with new and existing Viacom clients to help them develop data-driven, integrated marketing solutions that exploit the multi-platform ability of Viacom’s brands to deliver mass consumer engagement across TV, digital and social media.

The team will focus on developing partnerships with third party social media platforms for the benefit of advertisers, such as Lionsgate’s exclusive preview of its upcoming release Absolutely Anything on MTV’s international Snapchat Discover feed earlier this month. The team will also be responsible for creating bespoke commercial digital products around Viacom’s international tentpole events, such as the MTV EMA, which attracted more than half a billion votes and 389 million mentions via social media when it was last staged in Glasgow in November.

Based in London and New York, the team will be led by Philip O’Ferrall, who has been appointed as VIMN’s Head of Commercial Innovation. Reporting to VIMN CEO, Bob Bakish, O’Ferrall will work closely with VIMN’s Advertising Sales division and its international brand content, marketing and research teams, while his group maintains its own production, strategy and design capabilities.

O’Ferrall will lead the international roll out of Viacom Connect, which will combine a number of new multi-platform advertising initiatives, such as the Echo social media measurement platform developed through the Viacom Velocity unit in the US, in partnership with Mass Relevance.

Bakish commented: “Under Philip’s leadership, we have significantly developed our digital presence and portfolio, and our social and digital media teams have enjoyed great success in driving mass consumer engagement with our content on multiple media platforms. He is ideally suited to lead Commercial Innovation for VIMN, harnessing our unique relationship with our fans across every screen to help brands develop meaningful new connections on our own and partner platforms.”

O’Ferrall added: “The group will build on our proven success driving mass consumer engagement around our tentpole events and bespoke activations, on our own platforms and within our branded presence on partner platforms, ranging from YouTube to Snapchat and Twitter. We will combine data-driven innovation and our search expertise with our core strength of entertainment content in a one stop digital media shop for brands and agencies.” 

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