DAIVID Names Head of Data Science

Creative effectiveness platform DAIVID has appointed Eli Drake as its new Head of Data Science. Drake has spent the last ten years as Director of Business Intelligence and Analytics with legal practice Testan Law.

DAIVID was launched two and a half years ago by Ian Forrester, former Insight Head at video tracking platform Unruly, and employs facial coding, eye tracking and computer vision data to automate ad testing at scale by predicting human attention levels and emotions. Recent high profile appointments have included the promotion of EMEA MD Barney Worfolk-Smith to Chief Growth Officer, the appointment of former Kantar man Mitch Eggers as Chief Scientist, and the announcement of ad industry leader Rory Sutherland as a Strategic Advisor.

Drake brings a broad range of experience to his new position. At Testan Law he used statistics and other quantitative methods to support the company's services, including its focus on driving efficiency in litigating matters on behalf of clients and its work in the area of legacy and complex workers' compensation claim closures. Prior to 2014 he worked as a research statistician for Global Market Insite, creating methods to allow for statistically sound data collection from a wide range of online sources. GMI later became part of Lightspeed (now within Kantar) which was granted a US patent in 2017 for its 'Honesty Detector', on which Drake and Eggers had worked.

Earlier, Drake served as an Assistant Vice President and data analyst with Marsh USA, developing statistical models and simulations for workers' compensation claims. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in Mathematics from the State University of New York at Potsdam.

In his new US-based role he reports to Eggers, and will work on development of the company's suite of AI-powered solutions. These include DAIVID Self-Serve, which has been trained on millions of data points detailing people's emotional responses to ads, and promises to predict how they will react to new creative.

CEO and founder Forrester says Drake is 'a data science powerhouse', and adds: 'DAIVID is on a mission to develop technology that makes advertising work harder, and having someone of Eli's expertise will be crucial as we continue to scale'.

Web site: www.daivid.co .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.