billups appoints Ranganathan Somanathan in newly appointed role

Independent out of home agency billups has appointed Ranganathan Somanathan (pictured) in the newly created role of chief global growth officer. 

In his new role, he will collaborate across departments including client development, client services, product development, and product marketing to increase client utilisation of billups’ services and drive its global market share.

He will also help clients rebalance their media investments across the funnel, build strategic partnerships across markets, introduce global best practices in attention measurement, and coach billups' market leadership as the agency scale.

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Somanathan will report to David Krupp, global CEO, billups. 

Somanathan brings extensive experience from previous roles as CEO and advisor at Publicis Media Malaysia and Singapore, and CEO at Omnicom Media Group Malaysia and Singapore.

Somanathan is also the co-founder of RSquared Global Ventures where he mentors marketing technology companies in the area of media, data, content and commerce to drive accelerated growth. 

“As billups rapidly emerges as the world’s leading independent out of home agency, I’m excited to leverage my experience helping marketers, agencies, and media partners optimise their investments in this dynamic channel,” said Somanathan.

“The diverse global out of home landscape offers tremendous opportunities for innovation and scale, and I look forward to partnering with the billups team to drive meaningful improvements in brand preference and performance for our clients worldwide," he added. 

In tandem, billups has elevated Jaime Byrdak to the role of CEO, North America, Dave Williams to global head of commercial and investment and Tony Stoering to global head of client development. 

Byrdak has led OOH media teams for the past 20 years. She has been with billups for over six-plus, most recently in the role of head of media. Previously, Byrdak was managing director of the central region at Kinetic, WPP. 

Meanwhile, Williams joined billups in 2022 to launch commercial operations in EMEA. Williams’ expanded role will ensure maximum value is delivered for advertisers globally and that business intelligence, optimised supply-side buying practices, and new and bespoke media opportunities inform billups’ global client service teams.

Stoering’s OOH agency, Heed, was acquired by billups in 2015. Since then he has focused on enterprise clients and expanding their use of billups’ services across global markets. Stoering will be responsible for all business development teams, support their deployment, training, and process compliance, and will mobilise billups’ global resources to meet client requirements.

In addition, Benjamin Milne has been recently appointed as CEO, APAC. Milne was previously global head of out of home, media at dentsu international and managing director at PSI Advertising. 

The strengthened leadership structure positions billups to advance its global expansion strategy through a combination of build, buy and organic growth initiatives, according to a statement seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE. 

The team will focus on aligning strategic planning processes to encompass billups' patented IP and OOH impact measurement. This includes expanding client remits across borders and driving innovation in attention measurement, sustainability and accountability. 

“2025 is going to be an incredible year. We will continue to invest in our technology, products, and our people to achieve Ben Billups’ vision of ‘delivering amazing’ and moving the world for our clients,” said Krupp.

“These appointments reflect our commitment to expanding our best-in-class team, furthering our positioning of out of home as a key awareness and transaction driver for clients in the digital economy. Our talent, products and technology are critically focused on delivering value, innovation, and verified results for advertisers’ investments in out of home," added Krup. 

In conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Somanathan says he sees "some clear trends regarding the state of out of home advertising and where it’s heading."

Performance media efficacy has hit a plateau, and there is increased demand for accountability in both performance and preference, said Somanathan.

"Look at major brands such as Gucci and Nike – they’re returning to upper-funnel brand building. Out of home provides what I call ‘unskippable' strategic performance’ in this landscape," he added.

"The industry is in the middle of a significant shift from lower-funnel to upper-funnel marketing, and I believe there’s a growing need for more accountability in measurement and standards. This is exactly where billups is headed as the world’s leading independent out of home agency," explained Somanathan.

Just earlier this week, it was unveiled that T-Mobile is acquiring Vistar Media for US$600m in cash, aiming to fuel better ad experiences for consumers and more effective products for advertisers.

As part of the agreement, T-Mobile will acquire all of Vistar’s capabilities through the T-Mobile Advertising Solutions business. This includes its intelligent marketplace and technology solutions for buying, selling and managing media campaigns across a global network of more than 1.1 million digital screens provided by nearly 370 OOH media owners and serving more than 3,000 brand partner advertisers.

The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2025, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals.

This combination will help transform the digital out of home (DOOH) industry by leveraging Vistar’s end-to-end ad-tech platform and scale, together with T-Mobile’s unique customer insights and data.

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