Verizon's AOL’s Kline Sees Location-Based Mobile As ‘Untapped Frontier’

COLOGNE-To the world at large, the fate of Yahoo had been a long-running saga that seemed like it would never end. But to AOL CMO Allie Kline, the deal joining AOL and Yahoo is a big momentum boost for the “flywheel” of data-driven advertising and content under the Verizon umbrella.

With Verizon (link is external) already having scooped up some of the biggest and most powerful content brands, “The potential acquisition of Yahoo that only increases our footprint on the brand side,” Kline said in an interview with Beet.TV in mid September at the annual DMEXCO (link is external) conference and exposition.

Combining content capabilities with data-driven technology platforms, “you really start to think about the possibility of data-driven content, data-driven advertising and that ecosystem just continuing. We call it the flywheel,” Kline (link is external) said.

AOL, which considers mobile to be “a horizontal layer underneath both content and technology,” sees vast potential in the enlarged company’s ability to have technology inform decisions on which content to show on which devices. The personalization that can happen on mobile is optimized by the “unprecedented” Verizon subscriber base, according to Kline.

“So we really see that as a strong competitive advantage going forward, particularly in areas like location-based data, which we see as an untapped frontier,” said Kline.

On the content side, Kline cites the reach and engagement of properties like Huffington Post and Engadget (link is external). The addition of Yahoo’s news, finance, sports and other brands will add more spin to the freewheel.

Once the Yahoo merger is done, the challenge will be “To be able to figure out how to put this combination of assets together and how to tap into the network of publishers and brands that we partner with in order to achieve great scale without compromising premium content,” Klein said.