• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 25, 2004

Media agencies have always prided themselves on the role they play in marketing their clients' products. Now they want to bring that same level of sophistication into how they market themselves. In a surprising development, two top media shops - Grey's MediaCom and Publicis' Starcom units - have restructured their operations and created a top management role that is normally associated with their clients' businesses: chief marketing officers. Starcom made its reorganization public on Wednesday, naming Steven Feuling an outsider and former marketing chief at Kmart to the post. MediaCom quietly made its move early this year but has yet to officially announce it.

"I guess we beat them to the punch," says Jim Porcarelli, a long-time MediaCom insider who in January was been named the agency's CMO (chief marketing officer) from executive vice president-director of client service. "It is important for us to market ourselves to the industry, because media companies have become exciting brands and we need to differentiate ourselves."

The development speaks volumes about the rapid maturation of the media services industry, which less than a decade ago was known for providing the most base of marketing services - the buying of media time and space - to one that seems to some have virtually no bounds. It also raises questions about the nature of the "product" media agencies produce, how they package, market and distribute it, and perhaps most importantly, how they cultivate and differentiate their own brands at a time of rapid industry consolidation.

"It's a wonderful idea for them to say they have marketing officers. It aligns them directly with their clients and it's every bit as stimulating for media agencies as some of the other new roles they've been creating such as creative director or account planning director. It's a differentiator," says Steve Fajen, a former agency media director who now heads the media services practice of Morgan Anderson Consultants, a leading management firm that helps marketers manage their agency services.

But Fajen questions whether the CMO role of a media shop is truly analogous to that of their clients, or whether it is more of a symbolic gesture and simply a way of repackaging more traditional roles within media agencies such as business development, client service, trade promotion and public relations.

"What do they really influence," asks Fajen. "The media, if you will, that a classic marketing director deals with includes packaging, pricing and distribution. It's hard to imagine that a marketing director at an agency - especially a media agency - is going to influence all of that."

Fajen, of course, is alluding to the so-called "four Ps" of the marketing mix - "price, place, product and promotion" - a concept that was first coined in the mid-1960s by marketing guru Neil Borden in his classic book, "The Concept of the Marketing Mix."

"I don't know what that means for a media agency," says Fajen. "I don't know what a marketing chief in a media agency can do about influencing things like pricing, or packaging or distribution."

While neither is yet ready to articulate their full visions - both MediaCom's Porcarelli, nor Starcom's Feuling are relatively new in their jobs - both say they disagree with that view.

"We're still working on the actual components, but obviously like all traditional CMOs I will be involved in the strategic issues related to the brand," says Feuling, who officially joined Starcom this week. "Obviously, you have to look at which vehicles or channels make sense for what you want to communicate," he adds, alluding to the idea that Starcom would utilize the same approach of consumer "contacts and connections" to market its own brand that it uses to market its clients' brands.

MediaCom's Porcarelli is more aggressive about that, noting, "There really are lots of ways to 'advertise' without the traditional methods," he says, "we're all about targeting the bulls-eye, not the shrapnel." He declines to cite specific plans, claiming they are still confidential and proprietary, but he promises they will be "cutting edge."

That comment is likely to make minds reel throughout the media services business, which still tends to look at its own marketing as mainly public relations efforts in the trade and consumer press, speaking engagements at industry events, and maybe some direct mail and collateral materials, but certainly not the kind of ambitious advertising that agencies conduct on behalf of their own clients' brands.

"I don't know that you won't see that," says Porcarelli, implying that traditional advertising might be a tool MediaCom employs, which would be a first. The rare times agencies have advertised, it tended to be full-service ad shops touting the fact that they had won some important industry award - usually a creative one - in the trade press, or a major newspaper.

But Poracelli says it is more likely that media shops will utilize some of the newer and more innovative "communications contacts" techniques they are beginning to employ for their clients - the kind that designed to stretch the boundaries of traditional advertising.

How these media agency CMOs ultimately engage the industry and their constituents - including current and prospective clients - could have a profound impact in shaping the way the overall media services sector looks at itself and its product, which many believe know no boundaries and could extend well beyond the traditional roles of planning and buying media.

Meanwhile, in a related move at Starcom, the agency also promoted long-time media buyer John Muszynski to managing director of investment and operations, a new top-tier management post that along with Feuling will represent part of the core management team reporting to CEO Renetta McCann. Industry speculation has it that the moves are designed to prepare for a new management team to succeed McCann who may be poised for a higher role within Starcom MediaVest Group, or within parent Publicis. SMG chairman Jack Klues is also rumored to be on the move.

Meanwhile, Muszynski's new role effectively consolidates Starcom's massive print buying operations into a consolidated print and electronic media buying group, following a path implemented by other media shops. Karen Jacobs, who had managed the print buying unit, left recently.