Excite Appoints Senior Vice President of Marketing

Excite Inc. named Fred Siegel as senior vice-president, marketing. He will lead Excite’s marketing and brand campaign in the next phase of consumer adoption of the Internet, the company said.

Formerly senior vice president of marketing at QVC, Siegel, 45, took the QVC brand from its No. 2 position in televised shopping to make it the world leader in electronic commerce–from approximately $1 billion in annual revenues to over $2.4 Billion in 1998, Excite said.

“At QVC, Fred mixed brand, event and direct marketing to sell it all to the consumer,” said George Bell, CEO of Excite. “He not only has an understanding of traditional brand-building, but a clear understanding of how to integrate electronic commerce and branding in the real-world to build a loyal consumer–and this is exactly what we need at this point in our brand growth.”

Siegel’s responsibilities will include the strategic development and implementation of all marketing, advertising, promotional and public relations campaigns for the Excite and WebCrawler brands.

Prior to his role at QVC, Siegel served as executive vice president and executive creative director at Ketchum Advertising. Before joining Ketchum, he was senior vice-president, group creative director at the McCann-Erickson agency in New York City.