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The appointment comes as the company continues to drive towards its target of 10m pay-TV customers by 2010.

The company claims that the new role is pivotal to the implementation of BSkyB's segmented marketing strategy to target non-subscribers.

This is to be supported by the development of a prospect database, including profiles of non-subscriber households across the UK and by a major brand marketing campaign that emphasises the range and quality of programming on the Sky platform.

Mellis was previously vice-president at management consultancy Cap Gemini. In his former role, Mellis led a consulting team in the fields of marketing, sales and service effectiveness.

He joins from BSkyB at the end of September 2004 and will report to Jon Florsheim, managing director of sales, marketing and interactive.

According to Florsheim: "I am delighted to welcome a marketer of William's calibre to BSkyB. His expertise in segmentation will be a valuable asset as BSkyB tailors its direct marketing activity to address the motivations and attitudes of discrete groups of consumers."

Dunnhumby was recently appointed to the task of developing the database, which will be augmented with knowledge gained through BSkyB's previous marketing activity and used to refine different product propositions, media strategies and creative executions.

Sky recently unveiled plans for a new intensive marketing strategy and overhaul of the Sky brand to combat slowing subscriber growth.

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