Pretzel survivor joins Yahoo!

WITH the dust raised from the financial failure of Pretzel Logic barely beginning to settle, its former sales and marketing director Carlo Bertozzi has picked up his own baton, starting an online marketing business aided by a deal with Yahoo! Australia.

Mr Bertozzi formed Click-stream Media after becoming redundant during Pretzel’s re-cent receivership woes but he bears no ill-will from the way events panned out.

Instead, he said, he had positioned his company along-side his former employer, which has been bought by PIVoD Technologies, and similar players in the industry to provide online marketing and advertising solutions.

The deal with Yahoo! will result in the Internet giant being represented in WA for the first time.

Through the deal Clickstream gains access to Yahoo! databases and the wealth of demographic and regional information in order to more directly target consumers through online advertising and electronic marketing.

Yahoo! Australia marketing and sales director Leanne Sheraton said Yahoo! had been looking to appoint a WA representative and had performed extensive investigation and analysis of the Perth market for about 12 months before deciding on Mr Bertozzi.

“We decided we needed a local on the ground and Carlo really stood out due to his extensive knowledge of the Perth market, his background with Pretzel and his background with Excite Europe,” Ms Sheraton said.

Mr Bertozzi previously worked as Excite Europe’s sales director and also has a traditional publishing background for companies including Hearst Corporation and the Daily Express in London.

Mr Bertozzi said he was also currently in the process of signing a deal with Doubleclick, an email marketing and online advertising solutions company.

“Perth is underdeveloped in terms of a local outlet for online marketing,” he said.

Clickstream will be working directly with companies and through agencies such as Market-force, 303 Advertising and web firms such as Pretzel Logic.

Pretzel Logic made headlines this week by abandoning a rescue package negotiated with Vianet in favour of a similar deal with PIVoD Technologies.  

Reportedly, the deals negotiated with both Vianet and PIVoD were similar, although the successful deal allowed Pretzel Logic chief Steve Pretzel to keep his leased BMW.