Facebook snatches former Apple exec from Levi's to head global marketing

Posted:
in AAPL Investors edited January 2014


As it gears up for a high-profile initial public offering, Facebook has managed to lure Rebecca Van Dyck, Apple's former senior director of worldwide marketing and advertising, away from Levi's to serve as its head of global marketing.



Van Dyck is joining the social networking website to help it focus on consumer marketing, an area that the company admitted in its IPO filing that it has neglected, AdAge reported on Friday ( The Next Web). Though the news was originally reported by people familiar with the matter, a Facebook spokeswoman did confirm the hiring later in the day.



Apple hired Van Dyck away from the Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency in 2007, where she had served as the global account director on the Nike account for years. She then spent four years at Apple, first as the senior director of worldwide advertising and then as senior director of worldwide marketing communications and advertising.



Van Dyck revealed in an advertising conference keynote last year that her first day at Apple had left a deep impression on her, as it was the day that co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.



"[The iPhone] was something created from the outside in, by how it felt to the consumer and the user experience going through it," she said. "[Jobs] gave it to the engineers and said, 'Make it fit in there.' It was first and foremost about the user experience. And that's how I approach marketing, that theme of focusing on the user experience and what's important to the customer."



Former Apple product manager Bob Borchers recently said as much when he said in a lecture that Jobs had told the original iPhone team to create "the first phone that people would fall in love with."



After leaving Apple, Van Dyck served as chief marketing officer at Levi's, where she oversaw the company's "Go Forth" campaign.



Facebook revealed in this week's filing that it had spent $28 million on advertising last year. The company expects to raise $5 billion in its IPO and may attain a valuation as high as $100 billion.



[ View article on AppleInsider ]

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Another 'I knew Steve, so I am great too' person.
  • Reply 2 of 11
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Another 'I knew Steve, so I am great too' person.



    All I can say to Rebecca Van Dyck and Facebook is Pax Vobis
  • Reply 3 of 11
    My o my what a surprise. Good luck Rebecca marketing a brand on its accent in the cool factor world that Apple still has a dominance in.



    She must yearn for the fact that she'll be marketing a mass market brand with no edge at all left in it.



    Oh how fun.





    There is only one Apple, and Facebook is headed down the road of MySpace. Yea yea I know I know it's way bigger yada yada yada.



    Rebecca you'd be so much cooler if you landed this gig at the NEXT big thing rather than yesterday's news.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Another 'I knew Steve, so I am great too' person.



    What does your comment have to do with her getting hired by FaceBook?

    You think she wrote this article? And you think she wrote it because she knew Steve Jobs?



    How about another, "we will write a story about someone who knew Steve Jobs so we can get page hits"?
  • Reply 5 of 11
    You're so right. Apple completely dominates social. An area it doesn't even compete in. Now that's talent. If you knew anything about numbers; you'd quickly see that Facebook affects more users than Apple ever has and perhaps even never will. Apple is pretty damn far from hitting 1B people.



    I don't really get what your obsession with "cool" is. A product s used because it services the user unless you're in high school of course in which case it's all about being cool.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gijoeinla View Post


    My o my what a surprise. Good luck Rebecca marketing a brand on its accent in the cool factor world that Apple still has a dominance in.



    She must yearn for the fact that she'll be marketing a mass market brand with no edge at all left in it.



    Oh how fun.





    There is only one Apple, and Facebook is headed down the road of MySpace. Yea yea I know I know it's way bigger yada yada yada.



    Rebecca you'd be so much cooler if you landed this gig at the NEXT big thing rather than yesterday's news.



  • Reply 6 of 11
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    What does your comment have to do with her getting hired by FaceBook?

    You think she wrote this article? And you think she wrote it because she knew Steve Jobs?



    How about another, "we will write a story about someone who knew Steve Jobs so we can get page hits"?



    That's a valid point.
  • Reply 7 of 11
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    I don't get this article. Are we following the careers of anyone who ever worked for Apple now?
  • Reply 8 of 11
    Apparently so.



    Soon we will read the complete biography of mdriftmeyer.
  • Reply 9 of 11
    kibitzerkibitzer Posts: 1,114member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    I don't get this article. Are we following the careers of anyone who ever worked for Apple now?



    The soap opera "All My Children" is gone from TV now. It had to end up someplace.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cvaldes1831 View Post


    Soon we will read the complete biography of mdriftmeyer.



    I don't care who you are - that's pretty funny right there!
  • Reply 11 of 11
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    "[The iPhone] was something created from the outside in, by how it felt to the consumer and the user experience going through it," she said. "[Jobs] gave it to the engineers and said, 'Make it fit in there.' It was first and foremost about the user experience. And that's how I approach marketing, that theme of focusing on the user experience and what's important to the customer."



    I wonder if FB will allow her to do that. I think their focus is on making money, and it's the advertisers that bring in the money, not the user experience.
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