Zooppa

Zooppa is a platform for user-generated advertising, inspired by the principles of crowdsourcing and the dynamics of social networking. With a community of more than 60,000 people, Zooppa offers brands an innovative model for producing advertising, generating word-of-mouth, and gaining consumer insights. Zooppa has launched over 90 user-generated advertising campaigns for major brands such as Google, Nike, Hershey’s, General Mills, Microsoft, NBC Universal, and Mini Cooper.  A list of current campaigns can be found here: http://zooppa.com/contests.

How Does It Work?

Zooppa partners with companies to launch user-generated advertising competitions. Each company provides a creative brief outlining the objectives of the advertising campaign. Zooppa members are then invited to create ads that are tailored to the company's needs in competition for cash prizes. These ads can take many forms including video, print, banners, concepts and radio. Grand prize winners are selected exclusively by the brands, and additional awards are given to creators as determined by vote of the Zooppa community and selection by the Zooppa staff.

 Wil Merritt, Chief Executive Officer  

 Prior to coming aboard as CEO of Zooppa, Wil made a career at the intersection of media and technology. For four years he served as a Senior Vice President for the Corbis Corporation, Bill Gates' wholly owned private digital media company. Wil also spent eighteen years with Time–Warner, Inc. in posts around the globe including President for Europe/Middle East/Africa for the Time and Fortune Publishing Division.

Matt Klug, Director of Business Development

Matt joined Zooppa in 2009, after 10 years licensing Intellectual property and software. Matt's professional sales career started at the Corbis Corporation, a Bill Gates owned digital media company, about 10 years ago. During his time at Corbis, Matt worked his way up from being an Account Executive (managing relationships with some of the top agencies in the Midwest and Northwestern US), to leading the sales efforts out of Corbis' Midwest hub in Chicago. Matt is passionate about creating the perfect campaign for his clients, and he will do everything within his power to ensure that both internal and external clients achieve their campaign goals. Outside of work Matt is a passionate husband, father and fan of the Seahawks and Sounders.

Arik Abel, Marketing & Partnerships

Arik has been an innovator in word-of-mouth and non-traditional marketing since studying International Affairs, French, Music and Business at The Georgia Institute of Technology and New York University, respectively. His professional endeavors could be described as vibrant and diverse; traveling all 50 states as a Tour Manager, Audio Engineer and Content Producer for a soul artist, working in Client Service for a hedge fund, launching an online cooking show, putting on trade show events for Fortune 100 clients, crafting digital marketing and brand strategies for Start-ups and Non-profits. Marching into unknown territories without a plan and improvising his way to battle wounds and stories of epic victory, that's what gets him out of bed in the morning.

Josh Barnes, Community Manager

Josh has spent six years in online advertising, at Travelocity, Microsoft, and a small startup in San Francisco that you’ve never heard of. He was born and raised in Seattle, moved to San Francisco to pursue a career in traditional advertising, but happily got distracted by new media. Josh got an MBA from Seattle University in 2007, and has a B.S. in Cellular Biology from the University of Washington.

T.A. McCann, Management Advisor 

 T.A. is the founder and CEO of Gist, an online service that helps build stronger business relationships. In addition to advising Zooppa, T.A. has previously worked for Vulcan Capital and Polaris Venture Partners, and has held senior positions at Microsoft.