PHD founder David Pattison joins adtech firm Octaive

Octaive, an adtech firm focused on 'conversational advertising', has appointed PHD founder David Pattison as its chairman. 

Pattison co-founded PHD in 1990 and was a leader at the agency for 17 years. He spent two years at the consultancy iLG Digital before spending 11 years as a consultant to start-ups. He was appointed chairman of Gravity Road in 2012 and then tech company Rezonence in 2015.

Octaive is a cookieless chatbot service that overlays display ads to try to engage with consumers before they click through and create "conversational advertising".

It was set up by co-founders Sam Peters, Ben Swinburne and Anton Hanley and reported annual revenue growth of more than 100% in FY21.

Octaive aims to grab attention to learn more from potential customers ahead of a purchase decision.

The business has worked with Vodafone, Lego, VW and The Open University. 

“We are looking forward to drawing upon his extensive experience as we scale the business globally. For too long brands have been limited to just 'pushing' their message at consumers but today people expect control over their digital experiences,” Peters said. 

“Our core focus is helping brands create ad experiences that drive ‘active attention’ with their audience. Our platform makes this super simple by repurposing standard display, social and video assets into highly engaging, two-way interactive conversational creative.” 

Pattison added: “When I get involved with start-ups I have three criteria that need to be met: can I spend two hours in a room with the people, is it an interesting product and can I make a difference? Octaive puts big ticks in all the boxes... it is solving the problem of creating attention, driving personalised ads in a cookieless world. The results clients are getting are exceptional.”