Recently retired GroupM global chief digital officer, Rob Norman, has been named to the board of directors for storytelling platform Playbuzz.

Norman, who continues as a senior advisor to GroupM following his 31 years in various WPP roles said of his appointment: “In the digital world, impressions are cheap and harnessing users’ attention spans has never been more important. Playbuzz has developed creative, high-performing products, as well as trusted partnerships with premium publishers, that enable brand owners to achieve engagement at scale.”

Shaul Olmert, co-founder and chief executive officer of Playbuzz, added that Norman “is a true proponent of the evolution of digital content and inherently understands what makes consumers tick."

Founded in Israel in 2012 by Olmert and Tom Pachys, Playbuzz works with publishers, brands, agencies and content creators to create interactive branded content that is distributed at scale to its extensive network of tens of thousands and publishers which include HuffPost, the BBC, ESPN, CBS and Sky. The company has secured $66m in funding since its founding, with a $35m Series C investment in September 2017 that included Disney.

Performance and brand safety are a crucial part of the Playbuzz offering. The 150-employee company, with offices in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Hamburg, São Paulo, Moscow, Lviv and Los Angeles, noted that branded content campaigns powered by the platform perform well above industry standard. Campaigns see an average of 97%+ in-item viewability (confirmed by Moat Analytics) and two to four-minute average session times as opposed to the industry average of 15 seconds. On the safety front, campaigns attract 99% human traffic as confirmed by White Ops and average 86% brand lift, according to Nielsen.

In January 2017, Playbuzz ranked #7 in comScore’s lifestyles category and #27 on their list of top 100 video properties.