Huge appoints four senior commerce leaders and launches the Commerce Channel Navigator, a post-pandemic ecommerce offering for brands
New York, June 10, 2022 — Huge, a growth acceleration company, part of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), announced today its commerce practice has grown +50% through Q2 2022, and that it has appointed four senior hires to leadership positions. With growing fragmentation of the almost $4.9 trillion dollar digital commerce market, this expansion will help to support a number of high-profile new initiatives including the launch of the Commerce Channel Navigator, a one-of-a-kind assessment offering designed for brands to prioritize third-party social, search, and marketplace selling channels to maximize revenue and consumer engagement.
New Leadership and Investments.
The new leadership appointments include:
- Marisa Todd, Executive Creative Director, based in Brooklyn and London. Marisa has held leadership roles with brands including Farfetch, Artsy, the sustainability and Gen-Z focused marketplace Depop, and previously served as the Managing Director for Code & Theory London.
- Katherine Jones-Siemsen, Head of Product and Technology, based in Toronto. Katherine joins from eCommerce consultancy Myplanet, where she led Platform Strategy, including developing DTC brand experiences and modern technology solutions using MACH and API-first solutions.
- Kim Nguyen, Head of Distributed Commerce, based in Brooklyn. Kim joins from the Estee Lauder Companies, where she led global brand and retailer eCommerce within the luxury fragrance portfolio, and has worked with Richemont, Tapestry, and LVMH. Her focus areas include APAC, social commerce, gaming, and emerging spaces including web3.
- Nina Osborn, Head of Strategy, based in London. Nina joins from Accenture where she previously led Javelin Group’s Consumer Goods & Services practice and worked with brands across the globe on growth strategy, operating model design, proposition development and M&A engagements related to commerce and cross-channel customer experience.
These new hires bolster Huge’s global commerce practice to expand its capabilities across B2B and B2C commerce, and offer an integrated suite of services and products to ambitious brands. Huge’s global client base extends to some of the best known brands in the world, including commerce leaders like Ulta Beauty, with whom Huge recently partnered on a multi-year digital experience and technology transformation; Kate Spade; Canada Goose; Shipt; M&M’s; LVMH; McDonald’s; Lowe’s; Four Seasons; and SK-II.
Huge has also made strategic resource investments in technology architecture and engineering, social and marketplace commerce, and physical retail verticals that have become high focus areas for its clients. The commerce practice is led globally by Group Vice President Holden Bale.
Commerce Channel Navigator.
“We brought the Navigator to market because post-pandemic we are experiencing an almost unprecedented commerce convergence where seemingly every single digital platform – including search, social, publishers, media, and gaming – is investing in native ecommerce functionality,” said Holden Bale, GVP and Head of Commerce at Huge. “Consumers are coming to expect the ability to transact at the ‘point of inspiration’ on almost any platform.”
This one-of-a-kind tool gives expert-backed analysis to brands, helping them determine where to play in this ecosystem to drive maximum ROI and consumer engagement. For companies with a limited presence in eCommerce besides their own websites, or who have not fully explored selling via third-party platforms, it serves a roadmap for getting started, including reprioritizing existing investments or focus areas, and optimization opportunities to drive incremental sales.
“As everything becomes buyable, we’re seeing marketplaces emerging in unexpected places—from Netflix and NBC exploring shoppable TV to social platforms like TikTok and Instagram doubling down on their investment in commerce,” continued Holden Bale, GVP and Head of Commerce at Huge. “This explosion of new commerce touchpoints creates tremendous opportunity for brands, but also a great deal of complexity that requires re-thinking their channel and commercial strategies, and how they bring marketing and commerce closer together, to ensure a unified brand experience that builds love and loyalty.”
This will be the second product rolled out in the last year by the commerce practice at Huge, which launched Experience Stack of the Future (XSF) in partnership with BigCommerce and Contentful in September 2021.
“Investment in Huge’s commerce practice isn’t just a smart business decision, it’s critical,” said Huge’s Global Chief Executive Officer Mat Baxter. “Our recent insights prove that the traditional path to purchase is dead. By honing in on emerging market trends before they break, we stand committed to our clients that we are the partner that will bring them into the next frontier of commerce, physical retail and technology.”
Marketplaces.
Recent Huge research on the future of marketplaces and the “commerce convergence” identified the impact of fragmentation in digital consumer spending, with over 70% of North America consumers reporting having completed a purchase via social.
Huge research pointed to consumers being close to evenly split in buying preferences between online marketplaces (25-30%), multi-brand retailers (stores or online; 25-30%), and brands themselves (DTC websites or stores; 30-40%) across categories as varied as home goods, apparel, and beauty. Adding to this fragmentation, the commerce practice at Huge predicts that in three years, 75% of large multi-brand retailers will have their own marketplaces, and that by 2027, all digital advertising will be natively shoppable.
It’s exactly the shifting landscape and consumer behavior uncovered by Huge’s report that prompted its commerce practice to launch the Navigator. The Future of Marketplace research debuted at Shoptalk US 2022 in March and was also presented at Shoptalk Europe 2022 this June.
For more information on Huge, the commerce practice at Huge, the Commerce Channel Navigator, or to download Huge’s marketplace research, please visit https://www.hugeinc.com/commerce/.
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About Huge.
Huge is a growth acceleration company. We partner with the world’s most ambitious brands to transform user experiences, harness technologies to maximize return on value, and innovate on their business models to drive loyalty and growth. Headquartered in Brooklyn, NY, Huge has more than 1,200 employees working across 13 offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. For more information, please visit www.hugeinc.com
About Interpublic.
Interpublic is one of the world’s leading organizations of advertising agencies and marketing services companies. Major global brands include Craft, FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding), FutureBrand, Golin, Huge, Initiative, Jack Morton, MAGNA, McCann, Momentum, MRM//McCann, MullenLowe Group, Octagon, R/GA, UM and Weber Shandwick. Other leading brands include Avrett Free Ginsberg, Campbell Ewald, Carmichael Lynch, Deutsch, Hill Holliday, ID Media and The Martin Agency. For more information, please visit www.interpublic.com.