The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas each January has become the kickoff event for the advertising industry’s year. Following this year’s show — and a year of lows for the company — Twitter was riding high.
“There was some interest and revived excitement around Twitter coming out of CES. There was the expectation that this might be a rebirth year,” said Mike Dossett, associate director of digital strategy at RPA.
Then last week, Twitter announced that its COO and revenue boss, Anthony Noto, was stepping down to become CEO of financial tech firm SoFi.
“Everyone was a bit shocked because he was very active at CES representing Twitter, which wasn’t that long ago,” said Katherine Patton, director of paid social at Dentsu Aegis Network’s iProspect.
Noto is widely credited with whatever bright spots Twitter has enjoyed over the past year, such as its push toward premium live and on-demand video. That push had helped to reaccelerate the company’s audience growth in 2017 and was supposed to revive its sagging ad revenue in 2018, having stabilized its standing among ad buyers.
His departure could be seen as casting a shadow over that potentially bright future. But agency executives don’t see it that way.
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