Matt Britton, self-described “leading expert on the Millennial generation” and co-founder/former CEO of Publicis agency MRY (Mr. Youth), has a new gig.
Starting today, he is CEO of Crowdtap, a marketing tech company that he helped incubate while still running MRY.
From the press release explaining the new role:
As a founding member of Crowdtap, which was incubated out of MRY in 2009 and subsequently spun out into its own entity, Britton has played an integral role in the company’s growth as Chairman of The Board for the past 7 years; helping to drive the creation and growth of Crowdtap, now used by over 100 of the largest brands and marketing agencies in the U.S. As CEO, Britton will oversee the continued evolution of Crowdtap’s products and offering, lead the cultivation of deeper brand and client relationships, help with the recruitment of top talent and drive thought leadership for the company.
Here’s Britton’s quote:
“As one of Crowdtap’s original founders, I have a unique connection to the company and am excited to take the reins as we look to evolve once more and scale to new heights in 2017 and beyond. We started Crowdtap because we saw a shift happening in the industry back in the early days of social media and witnessed technology’s seismic impact on the industry. We see the same changes continuing today, just on a much larger scale impacting everything from research & development to broadcast television. In addition, the power of reach has decidedly shifted from Publishers to Individuals, a trend that Crowdtap is perfectly positioned to leverage.”
Crowdtap started as a market research platform that gathered data from consumers by offering them free gifts cards and discounts to fill out surveys. It’s now an ad software provider that works on a subscription model. But today Britton tells us the company looks to expand into offering more strategic insights and even producing content with the data it collects.
According to Britton, the independent company has raised $12 million in venture capital funding and currently employs about 100 people. It primarily has contracts with clients in the CPG field, but it’s also used by those companies’ agencies—and in some cases, Britton says that agencies use it for pitches.
Britton is no longer with MRY. He held a chairman role there after stepping down as CEO last year, when former Huge global CEO Jason Whiting took over. “As more and more advertising dollars are pushed to tech over services,” Britton says, running a company like Crowdtap seemed like a natural next step.
MRY itself has gone through a series of changes over the past year. After losing the social/digital portions of the T-Mobile and VISA business to Swift/The Laundry Service and BBDO, respectively, the shop parted with its chief creative officer, ECD, new business leaders and other executives.
The agency is still very active under its new leadership, though its staff is smaller than in previous years. We last posted on MRY when its midtown Manhattan office went on the market last summer, and it has since moved into ZenithOptimedia’s headquarters at 299 West Houston Street after becoming part of the larger Publicis Media organization.