In a bid to attract more TV and film marketers, Twitter has hired Jennifer Prince, formerly Google’s head of media and entertainment ad sales.
According to Variety, Prince will lead Twitter’s entertainment sales, based in Santa Monica, where she will hire a sales team to widen Twitter’s coverage of movies and TV and potentially move into videogame territory.
"All entertainment brands are working with Twitter, but they’re just scratching the surface," Prince said. "In my first two weeks, I’m going to meet with key entertainment brands to find out what exactly what they’re doing with Twitter today and where they want to go."
As director of entertainment industry sales, Prince will promote Twitter as the "social soundtrack" that can enhance marketing of TV shows.
This will be accomplished by selling promoted tweets to push sponsored messages in real time to users, with Twitter Amplify allowing media partners to embed video clips in their tweets.
Prince’s hiring marks the first time Twitter is targeting a vertical industry segment. Until now, company’s ad sales in the US have been regionally focused.
Twitter maintains it has no designs on becoming a media platform and isn’t seeking content-licensing deals. "This is not a content play," a company rep said.
Prince worked briefly for YouTube in early 2007 as a sales team manager, then joined Demand Media as head of branded ad sales before coming to Google in April 2011.
"Jen Prince has worked with Sony for more than the past decade, and her deep knowledge of the movie studio category makes her a perfect fit for the entertainment industry director role at Twitter," Elias Plishner, Sony Pictures Entertainment senior veep worldwide digital marketing, said in a statement. "We couldn’t respect her insight more and look forward to working with her in this new role."
