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| Oliver Maletz |
Head of Connections Planning, Media & International Communication
Volkswagen AG
After more than 20 years of working with both US and global marketers around the world, Oliver Maletz has distilled his approach to multinational marketing to three key ideas: Provoke, Support, and Create. For him, Provoke means addressing challenging questions; Support ensures that all resources and assets deliver the most efficient and effective thinking and execution; Create facilitates collaborative environments to generate innovative work.
His new global position at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg headquarters gives him responsibility for all VW brand communication channels—whether traditional, online, mobile, social, search or new developments-- across all where the automaker does business. It is a huge role, particularly as Oliver also oversees the development and implementation of global measurement, analytics and reporting tools across all channels, while working to implement a holistic consumer connections approach across all marketing partners to drive cost-effective, meaningful creativity and innovation.
His diverse background has undoubtedly paved the way for taking on such a significant global role. Immediately prior to being named VW’s Head of Connections Planning, Media & International Communication, Oliver was working as an independent Connections Planning Consultant with AlmapBBDO in Sao Paulo to improve Volkswagen Brazil’s media creativity and innovation. A native German speaker, this is not the first time that he’s worked with a German automaker. In 2000 and 2001, he served as Global Media Director for the DaimlerChrysler Media Alliance, based in Düsseldorf, where he not only managed media planning and buying activities across 60 markets, but also developed global consumer and brand-based strategic integrated communications frameworks.
The majority of Oliver’s career, though, has been spent at media agencies— largely in management roles with global or international focus. He has been based in New York for OMD, Horizon, and Universal McCann; Austria for Universal McCann; Bahrain for McCann Erickson / Fortune PromoSeven; in addition to his aforementioned roles in Brazil and Germany.
He attributes his extensive work crosses multiple categories from Automotive (with GM US Cars & DaimlerChrysler) to beverages (with The Coca-Cola Co.) to packaged goods (Gillette, J&J, L’Oreal) to retail (IKEA, ACE) as well as entertainment (Sony: Music, Movies, Electronics & Corporate) to giving him the ability to transfer best practices from across categories and cultures, especially in the areas of Consumer Insights, Connection Planning, Multi-national activations and critically, implementation. We’d also add that he’s an accomplished Internationalist who’s driven to move the industry forward.
