JCDecaux UK has appointed Mark Halliday and Richard Simkins to newly created senior commercial roles.
Halliday becomes director of programmatic, while Simkins is named director of commercial and partnerships for the airport sector.
They report to chief commercial officer Mark Bucknell and join the senior commercial leadership team.
Bucknell said: “Transport and programmatic OOH are among two of the key drivers for OOH growth and so I’m delighted to welcome Mark and Richard to the commercial senior leadership team, bringing their experience and expertise to JCDecaux UK at a hugely significant time.
“As the latest AA/Warc figures reveal, OOH and online were two of only three channels to grow in 2023. The new digital capabilities of OOH, including programmatic, are fuelling OOH’s growth, providing exciting opportunities for omnichannel planning.”
Bucknell added that transport advertising was “going from strength to strength”, particularly with JCDecaux UK’s recently renewed Edinburgh Airport contract alongside its pre-existing agreement with Heathrow, which is seeing “record numbers” as passengers and brands return post-pandemic.
In its most recent earnings, JCDecaux posted 61.8% organic growth in programmatic in H1, reaching 9% of total digital revenue.
For 2023, programmatic revenue increased 65% year on year across the group, but this was higher in the UK market — something that has been attributed to the company’s dedicated programmatic team, led by director of customer engagement Kate Tovey and head of programmatic Dom Kozak.
Tovey will continue as a member of the JCDecaux UK senior commercial leadership team, while Kozak is moving to join JCDecaux Dubai.
Most recently, Halliday founded consultancy Halogen Thinking and was director of Dax at Global. Before that, he was chief digital and data officer at MG OMD.
Simkins was previously head of strategy and operations for OOH and geo-analytics at Dentsu. He has also been head of network development at InPost, creative solutions director at Global and head of innovation at Talon.
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