Google just put one of its biggest advertising execs in charge of juicing revenue from Google News
- Google has named Brad Bender, who previously ran its display and video business, as VP of news products, a new position on Google's search team.
- Bender will oversee product, design and strategy for News and work closely with Richard Gingras, VP of News, who oversees relationships and initiatives with publishers.
- Bender joined Google via its acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 and played a big role in building its programmatic business. He's also invented data and privacy patents for Google.
- As Facebook and Apple roll out new revenue products for publishers, Google will need to step up its financial efforts, said David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance.
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Google has enlisted one of its biggest advertising execs to create products for Google News.
Brad Bender, who previously ran Google's display and video business, was given a new role as VP of news products on Google's search team. He will report to Nick Fox, VP of product and design for search and Assistant.
Bender will oversee product development, design and strategy for News. He will also work closely with Richard Gingras, VP of News, on Google's relationships with publishers and Google News initiatives. This year, Gingras has worked on subscription and membership products with news publishers like The Guardian.
"News is incredibly important to Google and society at large," Bender said. "Collectively, I think it is paramount that we work together on sustainable models so that the news media can continue to deliver high quality journalism to users around the world. I am excited to bring my experiences to this important space."
David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, a trade organization for newspapers, said Bender's new role suggests that Google News trying to get more competitive with Apple and Facebook, which have rolled out products that compensate publishers for content.
"Google News, like a number of other news aggregation products, has been pretty good at generating clicks and readers and not very good at generating money for news publishers," Chavern said. "Google often likes to brag about how much audience they send to news publishers, but that's a backward-looking view in a world where reach doesn't equal financial monetization. Google is going to have to step up their game and make their news products work financially for publishers."
Bender has played a key role in Google's ad business
Bender was most recently VP of product management for display and and video, overseeing Google's ad network and ad server.
Bender joined Google via its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 and helped build Google's Display Network and video ad business. He also invented several data and privacy patents for Google.
This year, Bender helped roll out Google's social media-like Discovery ad format and helped with a major reorganization of Google's ad products last year.
In September, Google reorganized its ad business to bring its buy-side and sell-side arms, which will split Bender's role into two jobs, a spokeswoman said. Sissie Hsiao will run the sell side as VP and general manager of apps, video and display advertising while Mike Schulman will become VP of user trust and privacy.