AOL says aloha to strategic ad exec Dave Morgan, founder of AOL-acquired Tacoda…
“Perennial online ad entrepreneur Dave Morgan will officially leave his short-term home at AOL to focus fully on his next startup…”
New York — Dave Morgan, a senior advertising executive at AOL, left the company Monday after three months in the position to pursue unspecified startup opportunities.
Dave Morgan, who had served as EVP of Global Advertising Strategy, since last fall, advising AOL CEO Ron Falco and COO Ron Grant on repositioning the company’s ad assets, left to “pursue start-up opportunities,” AOL’s Grant, said in a memo.
Morgan joined AOL in July 2007 following the company’s $275 million purchase of Tacoda, the ad network he founded in 2001.
From a leadership standpoint, it is a huge loss. Dave Morgan was EVP Global Advertising Strategy. His departure essentially leaves AOL without a global advertising strategy while Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes splits and sells AOL.
“The company said Morgan may find online-advertising investment opportunities for AOL.”
“I just realized I could not stay and noodle over ideas while I was still an employee,” he told ClickZ News. In the next week or so, Morgan will leave his position as AOL’s EVP of global advertising strategy, where he has been charged with reaching out to ad agencies, building partnerships, and ensuring AOL kept its eyes on display ad prize. However, he plans to stay in close contact with the company, which he said could take an interest in his venture-to-be.
“I will still be spending time around the AOL offices and…will spend a lot of the spring and the summer working on a business plan, and there will be more to come,” he said.
AOL’s absorption of Tacoda led to the creation of Platform A, a collection of AOL’s ad networks, including Advertising.com, Lightningcast and Third Screen Media.
The departure is the second high-level defection from AOL this month. Kate Kayse, EVP, marketing solutions at Platform A, is leaving to join Discovery Networks.
AOL described Morgan’s departure as voluntary and said he would continue helping AOL identify startup opportunities strategic to AOL and its emerging Platform A advertising unit, the company’s effort to consolidate its ad operations as it tries to boost advertising sales to offset plummeting subscription revenue.
The departure comes at a critical time for AOL. Time Warner is in the midst of a restructuring under new Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes, and AOL is a linchpin of the revamping. Time Warner said last week it will separate AOL’s Internet-access business, a step that may be a precursor for a sale or spinoff of all of AOL.
AOL has placed renewed emphasis on becoming a hub for ad sales across the Internet. Morgan, a former newspaper-industry executive, prior to founding Tacoda, he started Real Media, an early Internet ad network that eventually merged with 24/7, is well-regarded in the advertising community.
“He is exploring opportunities in emerging markets, data interchanges and cross-platform measurement.”
Morgan said he plans to start a new company in the digital advertising space. Hinting at his plans, he continued, “I’m going to be very much focused on digital media and marketing.” Whatever the business scheme entails, it would not deal with behavioral targeting, said Morgan, noting, “You have got to look for the next thing.”
“The way the buyers, sellers and service companies talk to each other is changing,” he said. “Clearly how companies interact with data is going to be really important.”
Although Morgan said he made his final decision to leave AOL in the past two weeks, he insisted it had nothing to do with potential implications of Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo, announced in that time.
Morgan said Microsoft’s grab for Yahoo had “no influence” on his decision to leave AOL. In fact, “it encapsulates” his reasoning. “It tells you it is a really good time to be looking into the market, at the other side, in the startup world,” he said. Further consolidation in the industry is not a threat to AOL, he added.
Morgan “is an entrepreneur at heart, and so it did not really surprise me that he wanted to get back in the startup game again, and we will look forward to working with him in the future,” Grant, said in a memo to employees.
Morgan said the reason he took a position with AOL at all was because he “wanted to be sure that the voice and the power of the “Tacoda” network could be understood.”
The development comes days after AOL’s parent, Time Warner Inc., reported that AOL had its slowest quarter of advertising growth since it started trying to remake itself as an ad-focused Internet business.
Time Warner also said it planned to separate AOL’s ad operations from its dial-up access business. That could lead to a sale of the dial-up business in the U.S. – as it already has done in Europe – and in turn make the advertising operations more attractive to potential bidders.
According to Grant’s message to AOL colleagues, “The integration of Tacoda is largely complete and well ahead of schedule.” Former Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz currently heads up AOL’s Platform A division, which includes Tacoda, Advertising.com, mobile ad network Third Screen Media, text ad network Quigo, as well as ad management firm AdTech.
“Morgan, 44, did not return a phone call yesterday seeking comment.”