AT&T’s Xandr unit, said it plans to expand its addressable and audience-based advertising business.
Xandr is hiring and named Jay Askinasi, previously global president of Publicis Media as VP, head of agency and digital partnerships for Xandr Media.
Hiring Askinasi is part of Xandr’s effort to build relationships with media agencies as it moves to simplify the business as it unifies addressable TV advertising sales with channels like connected TV and digital video.
“Jay has vast experience with agencies, ad tech and cross-screen video sales, which is the perfect fit for Xandr and our go-to-market approach,” said Jason Brown, senior VP and head of advertising sales partnerships at Xandr Media.
“While Xandr already has the most scaled addressable TV footprint in the business, we’ve changed the way we go to market to reach TV viewers across new channels like TV Everywhere, streaming services like DirecTV Now and new AT&T platforms like WatchTV, for both regional and national advertisers alike,” Brown said.
Askinasi will report to Brown.
Xandr said that it plans to recruit more execs for its addressable business who will focus on agency and digital sales, industry sales, portfolio sales and regional sales.
“We have organized ourselves to offer a holistic buy-side offering under one roof, including everything from addressable TV to digital and programmatic, which is the way the marketer wants to buy,” Askinasi said. “Increasingly, holding companies make a number of investment decisions for their operating agencies, so we want to support our agency and brand clients in the way they’re organizationally aligned."
Xandr Media is one of three parts of Xandr. The others are Xandr Data, which does consumer insights and analytics, and AppNexus, the advertising platform.
