Mercier joins from Egg in France, where he is director of sales and marketing. He was previously marketing director at Kelkoo, where he worked with Pierre Chappaz, president of Yahoo! Europe, and Jean-Fabrice Mathieu, who is managing director of the company. Yahoo! bought the online shopping comparison service in March this year.
Mercier will be responsible for devising and driving strategy and coordinating marketing programmes across Europe. Yahoo! said that the role had been created to extend the company's range of premium services and products, and to build its capabilities in direct marketing and ensure its ads were the most creative in the industry.
Mercier was director of marketing communications at IBM France before joining Egg. He was responsible for leading all aspects of marketing communications across IBM's extensive Western European territories and worked across the full spectrum of marketing programmes encompassing advertising, direct marketing, events and online. Prior to this, Mercier was co-founder and vice-president of marketing at Kelkoo between November 1999 and November 2001.
Chappaz said: "Jerome is an experienced and innovative marketer who will strengthen our talented and growing European marketing team. He has worked on a range of top online and offline brands, which, coupled with strong ideas, vision and energy will ensure that we deliver even stronger brand, performance and product marketing campaigns across Europe."
Mercier will report to Chappaz and Cammie Dunaway, chief marketing officer of Yahoo!. His appointment does not affect marketing director Lindsay Biggart, who remains in the role.
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