The managing director of the digital sales house Michelle O’Keeffe is stepping down from her role with the company after eight years with the company.
She joined the group to run Media Brokers in 2010 and was promoted to managing director in 2013.
According to O’Keeffe: “I have made a decision to take time out of my career to spend it with my two daughters, aged 1 and 4 as they begin to grow up. This has been an extremely tough decision for so many reasons. My time at the Electric Media Group has been so rewarding. Working for Dermot Hanrahan and The Irish Times has given me a platform to grow professionally and personally which I am grateful for.”
Dermot Hanrahan, CEO of Electric Media added: “Michelle is one of Ireland’s leading digital advertising executives and will be sadly missed by all at Electric Media. However she has decided to give her full time attention to her other family – the more important one– a decision we understand and respect. I thank her for her work in bringing the company forward in its leading role in Irish Digital advertising and wish her the very best.”
According to Hanrahan, Megan O’Riordan will step in as acting managing director upon Michelle’s departure.
In a separate development, Electric Media has teamed up with the music discovery app Shazam to represent it in the Irish market.
According to Shazam, 76% of Irish people have the app installed on their smartphones and 1.6m ‘Shazams’ occur every month.
In April 2016, the company launched ‘Shazam for Brands’. The new initiative adds visual recognition and beacon technology to the current audio technology offering and creates the ability for any online ad, outdoor ad, radio ad, TV ad, event, venue and even product packaging to become ‘Shazamable’ – instantaneously connecting consumers with the brand’s online content. The company also launched Shazam Data Insights, focusing on gathering and leveraging consumer engagement data with the app to provide insights to brands.
According to Megan O’Riordan: “This is exciting for Electric Media. We will work with brands in Ireland on Shazam’s behalf to create incredible ‘connected mobile moments’. Basically, if you can see it, hear it, touch it – you can Shazam it. We will make billboards ‘Shazamable’, bring stadiums to digital life, create engagement opportunities on product packaging, and collect consumer data in one trackable online destination. It will be an exciting year.”
