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25 Oct 2006
Revolution: AdLink hires Burns in search move
by Danielle LongBurns is a famous name in the market; she made Google history in 2001 as the first of its employees to be appointed outside of the US. Prior to that she was head of pan-European sales at AltaVista. Burns' new move also reunites her with Adlink managing director Andy Mitchell, with whom she helped launch DoubleClick in the UK.
"Kate Burns is obviously an ideal person to bring in to assess and build a search capability. Given AdLink's history of acquisitions, I would expect it to buy its way into this space rather than growing organically, especially as it will need to establish itself quickly in such a rapidly evolving market," says Gregoriadis.
Jim Brigden, managing director of The Search Works, one of the UK's largest search agencies, agrees that acquisition would be the easiest path of entry for AdLink.
"The question is, who can they buy in the marketplace? There aren't many respected search agencies out there that can deliver the solutions," says Brigden. "We are already seeing survival of the fittest in the agency space.
COMPELLING SOLUTIONS
"AdLink has tried to launch into the search market lots of times in the past, but it has never come up with compelling solutions that work with its customer base," he explains.
While Brigden is quick to add that bringing Burns on board will make a significant impact on AdLink's search offer, he believes the competition in the marketplace will make it a difficult challenge.
With the recent launch of MSN's adCenter already shaking up the search market, it's an interesting time for a new player to wade in.
Since its August launch, ad-Center has been steadily signing up clients and agencies, which, says Brigden, have been reaping "fantastic conversions" through the service.
"MSN (adCenter) isn't huge yet, but it has aggressive plans for growth and it is going about it the right way," adds Brigden.
Since the announcement of the adCenter launch, the search market has been rife with speculation that it could turn out to be a real threat to Google's dominance.
