Ex-Vodafone innovation head joins outdoor media platform, EatAds.com

Feb. 19, 2014 - PRLog -- Ex-Vodafone Business Development & Innovation lead, Jonathan Bill, joined http://EatAds.com as an angel investor and advisor (investing an undisclosed sum) in January 2014.

Bill joins EatAds’ co-founders Dhruv Sahgal and Nigel Hembrow as they prepare to launch their platform for the OOH & Outdoor media industry. Their platform and service is inherently international but the India market will play a critical role as the initial focus market. They are also begin to invest into leveraging mobile data for the OOH & Outdoor media industry

Bill is a mobile Internet expert, having spent a decade leading Vodafone’s mobile internet operations and strategy in developing markets including India, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. Prior to this he was Commercial Director at Internet ad serving company Real Media and Business Development Director for Reuters Media.

“Dhruv, Nigel and the team are heavily focused on bringing order and systematic change to the industry. It is a global opportunity and the problems are most acute in the developing markets,” said Bill.

“I love businesses that use smart technology to formalise the informal and drive value. I’m excited to be involved.”

Outdoor media (billboards, transit media, bus shelters, airport media etc.) is a large but very disorganized industry globally. It has been very late in adopting similar web tools that have brought great efficiency to almost all other industries. The $33 billion industry is most disorganized in the emerging economies.

“There is a clear need for the adoption of solutions that assist the OOH & Outdoor media industry to organize the way participants buy and sell, and internally manage their workflows”, said Hembrow. “Working closely with the OOH & Outdoor industry over the past 12 months has enabled us to carefully plan our product offering. The low-level of technology adoption by the industry means that bringing complicated solutions into the market now is not useful. It might sound counter-intuitive but the solutions of most value now are simple. They must be adoptable solutions.”

EatAds are also investing in leveraging mobile data for the OOH & Outdoor media industry, and are in talks with both data providers and data-analytics partners.

“Jonathan’s and experience and advisory is already proving invaluable in this very exciting part of our work”, said Sahgal. “Determining location insights based on rapidly available big data is an area we’re very excited about. We will announce more about our work in this area throughout 2014.”

To enable quick adoption in India, EatAds is now interviewing a number of strong candidates for Sales and Business development roles. We have been very impressed by the large interest from quality candidates and will be announcing appointments shortly.

Backed by experienced early-stage digital investors in India and Singapore, EatAds will be further fundraising over coming months. With industry leaders calling for industry reinvention (see recent interview with Haresh Nayak, MD of Posterscope Group India) the time is right for EatAds.

Jonathan Bill

Jonathan is founder of PluggedIndia.com and a 'stealth mode consumer tech startup'. He is an advisor to Reverie Language Technologies, Saavn, On Device Research and several other mobile centric businesses. And is also an active angel investor in India’s tech start-up market.

He is a mobile internet expert, having spent a decade leading Vodafone’s mobile internet operations and strategy in developing markets including India, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. Prior to Vodafone he was Commercial Director at internet ad serving company Real Media and was Business Development Director for Reuters Media.

He lives in Mumbai, India.

EatAds.com

EatAds.com is a platform marketplace for buyers and sellers of outdoor media, offering workflow solutions for both buy and sell-side and integrating with leading third-party solution. EatAds is launching soon.

Outdoor media (billboards, transit media, bus shelters, airport media etc.) is a large but very disorganized industry globally. It has been very late in adopting similar web tools that have brought great efficiency to almost all other industries. The $33 billion industry is most disorganized in the emerging economies.

EatAds is a Singapore company, with Asia focus, global ambitions and a heavy presence in the India market. The Founders are all experienced entrepreneurs, backed by some of the most experienced digital investors in India and Singapore.

For more information, please contact

Nigel Hembrow (nigel@eatads.com) or Dhruv Sahgal (dhruv@eatads.com)