Execs & Accounts for July 20, 2005

Deep Focus, a Brooklyn-based digital marketing agency focused on the entertainment vertical, hired Susan Gruner as director of operations. Gruner was a media supervisor at Beyond Entertainment, where she was in charge of the Warner Bros. Theatrical Interactive Marketing program and managed relationships with AOL, Yahoo and MSN.

PointRoll hired four in sales and account management roles. Joe Sabol, who has worked for CMGI and AvantGo/Sybase, joined as sales director in the New York office. Lesley DeMaio, from Chicago OMD, and Summer Paul, from AOL, were hired to the Chicago account management team. Steve Jennings was named to PointRoll’s Fort Washington office.

The company also recruited two production engineers.

Corey Kronengold departed Eyeblaster, where he has long served as head of corporate communications. He’s taken a position with SoHo Digital, a behavioral targeting and adware firm. The move happened approximately two weeks ago.

EarthQuake Media was assigned online media planning and buying duties for Laura’s Lean Beef, which is based in Lexington, Kentucky. Billings weren’t disclosed.

McKinney designed a set of unique banner-based advergames for client Audi. “Quickest Shift Ever” uses PointRoll technology to let users expand a normal-sized banner and try to “catch” the dodging and darting Audi A3 with a virtual hand.