• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 13, 2010

Like any great Madison Avenue ad executive, Starcom's Jack Sullivan is an expert on the subject of positioning. But normally, he's discussing the positioning of one of his client's brands, or the position they occupy on some out-of-home media placement. To kick the discussion off during the big buyer's panel at this morning's Digital Out-of-Home Forum, Sullivan pointed out the position of a column buttressing the room at the Crowne Plaza hotel in New York, the venue for the forum's meeting. The column was set dead center in the room, and Sullivan quipped that it was likely "well positioned between me and Paul Lindstrom of Nielsen.

Lindstrom, of course, is the Nielsen executive who developed and championed the research firm's new "Fourth Screen Report," a new syndicated research study measuring digital out-of-home and place-based TV networks.

Sullivan's quip stems from the fact that he's not such a big fan of the new Nielsen report, because he thinks it defines the medium way too narrowly. The opinions of others isn't so clear.

Sullivan asked attendees at the forum to show their hands if they were happy or unhappy with the release of the Nielsen report. Fewer than a dozen attendees said they were happy. Only a couple said they were unhappy.

"A lot of indecision in this room," Sullivan observed.