Former Snap govt Alex Dao has joined Digital Arts in a brand new function that may unite the gaming model’s artistic promoting and sponsorship capabilities. He’s tasked with constructing EA’s model partnerships with out disrupting the gaming big’s international person expertise.
He’s tasked with constructing EA’s model partnerships that concurrently don’t annoy the gaming big’s international person base.
Dao beforehand held roles in gross sales, account administration, and enterprise improvement at Yahoo, Criteo, and Amazon earlier than arriving at Snap in 2019. Whereas at Snap, he rose to managing director of worldwide businesses and gross sales partnerships in 2023 and expanded the platform’s company companion program earlier this yr.
In an announcement, Juliet Niczewicz, senior director of company communications at EA, mentioned Dao “brings a wealth of expertise in constructing and partnering with businesses and types … With [him] becoming a member of the crew, EA is driving the chance for manufacturers to point out up in methods which can be significant, contextually related, and creatively highly effective.”
Dao’s hiring is a part of a broader shift in EA’s advert enterprise. CEO Andrew Wilson introduced plans to set up an advert community throughout final yr’s earnings name. As corporations search promoting income, they face challenges reminiscent of a scarcity of standardized measurement, competitors with e-commerce giants, and expensive infrastructure funding.
To EA’s benefit, the corporate has years of first-party information from its “participant graph,” an ID set aggregating play historical past and preferences utilized by builders and entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, including advertisements carries threat, as avid gamers usually view them as disruptive to the gaming expertise.
Dao’s function appears to be gamer-centric on the subject of manufacturers’ presence in video games. Signaling his philosophy on authenticity and engagement, Dao provided recommendation to manufacturers in a June 2024 difficulty of Ipsos’ What the Future. “[O]ptimizing towards happiness and never simply pure progress numbers and engagement metrics and likes is the long run as a result of folks care about connections and happiness,” he mentioned.
Individually, EA not too long ago switched up its company roster for its personal promoting spend. In March, EA chosen GroupM as its media company of file, ousting incumbent T&Pm after a six-month evaluate as the corporate revamps its international media-buying technique.
