July 2022 | Page 3 of 3

This week in leadership updates, the chief product and marketing officer for UK-based Nationwide Building Society departs, while Function of Beauty taps Marianna Trofimova as chief marketing officer, Nat Geo elevates Karen Greenfield to senior vice president of content, diversity and inclusion and more.

Nationwide Building Society’s Chief Product And Marketing Officer Steps Down

Nationwide Building Society’s top marketer since 2016, Sara Bennison, is exiting.

In a farewell post on LinkedIn, Bennison said:

“It took us 100 years to attract our first 1.5 million members but we grew our membership by that same number in the last 5 years. Proof positive, in my mind, that achieving success in the short term is best served by doing the right thing in the right way for your customers and for society in the long term.”

Bennison didn’t confirm her next move.

Prior to Nationwide Building Society, Bennison spent seven years at Barclays Bank, where she was chief marketing officer.

Function Of Beauty Names Marianna Trofimova Chief Marketing Officer

L’Oreal marketing veteran, Marianna Trofimova, has joined Function of Beauty as chief marketing officer, according to Global Cosmetics News.

Trofimova previously held various global leadership positions during a 20-year period at L’Oreal and its brands including Lancôme, Garnier and Biolage.

Nat Geo Elevates Karen Greenfield To SVP Of Content, Diversity And Inclusion

Karen Greenfield has accepted a promotion to the newly created role of senior vice president of content, diversity and inclusion at National Geographic Content.

Greenfield was most recently senior vice president of business operations as well as diversity and inclusion council chair.

Greenfield has worked at National Geographic since 2004 in a variety of business and product operation roles.

Pixelynx Hires Kimberly Knoller As Chief Marketing Officer

Pixelynx, the gaming and music metaverse company co-founded by deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin, has tapped Kimberly Knoller as chief marketing officer.

According to Music Business Worldwide, Knoller will oversee the company’s marketing strategy and execution, including its first game–ELYNXIR–which is slated to launch later this year.

Knoller joins Pixelynx from SongVest, where she was chief marketing officer.

ICYMI: Last week in job updates, Jenny Craig appointed Dan Hofmeister chief marketing officer, Amazon Prime Video and Studios chief marketing officer Ukonwa Ojo exited and more.

Amazon Prime Video and Studios Chief Marketing Officer Ukonwa Ojo Departs

Ukonwa Ojo, global chief marketing officer of Amazon Prime Video and Studios, is exiting after joining the company nearly two years ago.

According to her LinkedIn, during her time as chief marketing officer she launched eight of the top 10 shows in Prime Video’s 11-year history. She didn’t confirm what her next move would be.

Prior to Amazon, Ojo was global chief marketing officer at MAC Cosmetics and chief marketing officer of consumer beauty at Coty.

Jenny Craig Appoints Dan Hofmeister Chief Marketing Officer

Dan Hofmeister has joined Jenny Craig as chief marketing officer, according to a press release.

Hofmeister joins Jenny Craig from Bumble Bee Foods, where he held several marketing leadership roles, the most recent being senior vice president and general manager. Prior to Bumble Bee Foods, he spent eight years at Hormel Foods in customer business development and marketing positions.

Acne Studios Hires Isabella Burley As Chief Marketing Officer

Former Dazed magazine editor-in-chief Isabella Burley has been named Acne Studios’ chief marketing officer, reports Business of Fashion.

Burley, who led Dazed between 2015 and 2021, started working with Acne Studios last year when she was appointed to the newly created role of creative editor.

This week in social media news, TikTok is reportedly axing the expansion of its live ecommerce initiative, Snapchat launches a paid subscription and Instagram updates its Reels offerings for brands.

TikTok Axes Expansion Of Live Ecommerce After UK Launch Falls Flat

TikTok is dropping its plans to expand TikTok Shop, its live ecommerce initiative, in the US and other parts of Europe, according to the Financial Times and as reported by TechCrunch. After launching it in the UK last year for the first time outside Asia, the venture struggled to gain traction with shoppers and suffered from internal problems.

Why it matters: The change may suggest TikTok prematurely introduced livestream shopping in the UK and that US advertisers may not be able to advertise as hoped on the booming app. Nevertheless, as TikTok scales back its efforts in the US, it’s still doubling down on in-app shopping–it’s currently testing a dedicated Shop feed tab in Indonesia, according to TechCrunch.

The details: TikTok reportedly planned to launch TikTok Shop in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in the first half of this year and then in the US in the second half.

But people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the expansion was nixed after influencers dropped out of the project in the UK and that many TikTok Shop livestreams in the UK saw poor sales despite efforts to encourage brands and influencers to sell through the app.

Instagram Adds In-Feed Recommendations, Expands Reels Templates

Instagram has updated and expanded a few of its Reels tools to help brands create more immersive videos and get discovered by users who don’t follow them yet.

Why it matters: According to Instagram, 90 percent of accounts follow at least once business. To help these brands attract users and give them a reason to spend less on TikTok, Instagram continues to expand its Reels offerings. In addition to these new updates, the platform published an in-depth guide that includes best practices for scaling small businesses.

The details: Instagram says it’s testing several new ways to make a full-screen feed front and center. It’s also starting to recommend businesses’ content to people who don’t follow them yet. To do so, it uses a few signals to determine what accounts to display including posts people have previously engaged with, other people they follow and their interactions in the app.

As users spend 20 percent of their time on Instagram viewing Reels, the app is focused on making tools that help create immersive, shareable videos. For example, it’s expanding access to Templates, the function that allows users to borrow from the structure of another Reel and use it as a starting point.

Next, it’s expanding the time limit of Reels to 90 seconds. It’s also launching Audio Import, which allows you to take audio from any video in your camera roll and use it in a Reel.

Lastly, it’s adding stickers–like its poll, emoji slider and quiz–to Reels for more ways to inspire interaction.

Snapchat Launches Subscription With Exclusive, Early Access Features

Snapchat now offers a subscription called Snapchat Plus. Priced a $3.99, it’s tailored toward “the people who spend most of their time communicating with their closest friends on Snap,” the company’s senior vice president of product, Jacob Andreou, told The Verge.

Why it matters: This marks Snap’s first real attempt at bringing in money outside of advertising but Andreou tells The Verge there aren’t expectations for the subscription to become a “material new revenue source.” When asked if the paid tier would one day let people pay to turn off ads in the app, Andreou said that “ads are going to be at the core of our business model for the long term.”

The details: In addition to giving users the ability to unlock exclusive and early access features, Snapchat Plus lets subscribers change the style of the app’s icon, see who rewatched a story and pin one of their friends to the top of a chat history as a “BFF.”

The subscription is being released in Snap’s top markets: the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.