Apple hires Adobe exec to lead iAd

Updated. Several months after losing the head of its iAd program, Apple has filled the gap. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the company has plucked Todd Teresi from Adobe, where he’s been the vice president and general manager of media solutions since May 2011, to lead its mobile ad team.

Update: We now know, via a source familiar with the matter but who declined to be named, that Teresi has been named the Vice President of iAd. He started at Apple on Tuesday, where he reports to Eddy Cue, the company’s VP of Internet Services.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

iAd grew out of Apple’s purchase of Quattro Wireless. It was pitched when it launched in summer 2010 as a way to provide better, richer mobile ad experiences, with former CEO Steve Jobs boldly predicting it would capture just about half of the available market. However, it hasn’t been the hit it was advertised to be yet, and the company had in recent months been offering some deals to certain marketers at lower prices to encourage their business.

So perhaps not too surprisingly, Andy Miller, who was CEO of Quattro Wireless when it was acquired and stayed on to head iAd, left Apple in August, for the world of venture capital. In the meantime, the task of leading iAd had fallen to Cue, along with his other duties including heading iTunes, the App Stores, iBooks and iCloud.

At a time when Apple is firing on all cylinders, iAd has one of Apple’s few businesses that’s struggled. As GigaOM Pro’s Colin Gibbs noted here though, there were early signs though that there could be trouble, as the cost of the ads were high, it wasn’t required for iOS developers who did want to put ads in their apps, and many larger publishers have direct relationships with advertisers — so they don’t necessarily need Apple to be the middle man.

So whoever takes on iAd has their work cut out for them. Teresi could be the guy: He has extensive experience in mobile and online advertising in his career, including at Quantcast, and Yahoo, where he was once senior vice president in charge of the company’s display ad business.

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