• by May 25, 2006

Welcome to Media's 2006 Rising Stars!

We invited you to nominate the most stellar up-and-comers you know  and you did. We received loads of entries putting forth creative individuals who distinguish themselves by taking unconventional approaches to media challenges and who help turn good plans into brilliant ones. While we scrapped the age requirement, we sought people who continue to grow evolve, and rise in their careers. We eliminated nominees with puffy titles; we didn't consider vice presidents, managing directors, and other purportedly high-level talent. We wanted nominees who are slightly beyond entry-level and swimming toward mid-career, though not middle management. In other words, people who continue to rise.

The 2006 Rising Stars exceed their own and others' expectations; they are precocious, preternaturally talented, well-rounded, and leading the way to a new generation of media practices and trends.

Name: Karen Bennett
Company: MindShare
Title: Associate Planning Director
Karen Bennett quickly rose to the challenge when MindShare won planning duties for all of the Unilever brands. Bennett works with a variety of teams to develop media-agnostic ideas that address the client's business objectives, and serves as the lead on Unilever's Bertolli and Lipton brands. For Snuggle, Bennett negotiated and developed a program with Westwood One radio that allowed the brand to use the Grammy Awards' name for a promotion that invited the winners of a "moms' karaoke contest" to sing backstage at the Grammys. As the head of MindShare's assistant planner training program, Bennett serves as a role model for young planners at the agency.

Name: Tracey Hakes
Company: Starcom MediaVest Group, Coca-Cola Team
Title: Media Planner
The only Rising Star to be nominated twice, Tracey Hakes thinks anything is possible and goes above and beyond to prove naysayers wrong. Her precise understanding of the multiple brands that she manages, including Sprite, Fanta, and Diet Coke, allows her to generate big ideas and formulate digital, mobile, and TV extensions of those ideas. Hakes has recently been hard at work on the Sprite brand relaunch campaign, which begins this month. She also spearheads "Make Every Drop Count," an effort to educate consumers about the breadth and depth of Coca-Cola's beverage portfolio.

Name: Kari Hooper
Company: Starcom USA
Title: Associate Media Director  Video Investment Group
Kari Hooper, who grew up on a farm without cable in a small town in Illinois (pop. 500), is a six-year Starcom vet, who started her career at Starcom IP. She currently works in Starcom's Video Investment Group, working closely with cable TV properties like MTV and ESPN. She and her team are charged with figuring out the future of TV advertising and monitoring new technologies. Hooper helped execute the first live streaming ad buy for CBS during the 2006 NCAA March Madness on Demand, and implemented the first broadband syndication buy on the Web with Broadband Enterprise. "I like to consider myself bilingual when it comes to media speak," Hooper says. "More people need to speak in the same language as the [media] lines start to blur and as TV becomes interactive."

Name: Mary Kang
Company: StarLink Worldwide
Title: Associate Media Director  Local Investment Group
Spunky and vocal, Mary Kang feels fortunate that she's found a career that she loves. Kang, who's been quoted in The New York Times, Businessweek, and Advertising Age, works on local TV and radio investment at StarLink Worldwide, where she services clients including
Virgin Mobile, Suzuki, and ING Direct. Cross-trained in new media, Kang implemented some of the earliest podcasting media plans in the New York area. "I don't like the status quo," she says. "Our world is becoming so fragmented, and you have to think outside of the box. It's not a one-size-fits-all world anymore."

Name: Jack Kodesh
Company: MPG North America
Title: National Broadcast Supervisor
Jack Kodesh, a TV junkie and "Seinfeld" fanatic, is master of both his TiVo and his agency domains. As national broadcast supervisor at MPG, he works with clients including Oppenheimer Funds, WebMD, and Nasdaq on their TV campaigns and radio spots. He's known for being quick-witted and opinionated, and some say he has a "mind like a lockbox." Kodesh is passionate about his work in this "sexy industry," he says. Whether he's at work or at home, he's always tuned in.

Name: Matthew Kramer
Company: MEC Interaction
Title: Media Supervisor
In the four years since he graduated from college, Matthew Kramer has risen from planner to senior planner to media supervisor. He works on direct-response media and strategic thinking for clients like Netflix and DuPont, and serves as the cross-channel supervisor on the Sylvan
Learning Center account. For Sylvan, Kramer managed successful channel integration and improved a proprietary media ranker to ensure channel-neutral planning. "I love being able to optimize media, and I really do believe that within the next five to 10 years every major advertiser is going to spend part of its annual advertising budget in lead generation or direct response," he says. Kramer recently created a 15-minute short film that he hopes to debut on the film festival circuit next year.

Name: Jon Lumerman
Company: EarthQuake Media
Title: Media Supervisor
A jack of all media trades, Jon Lumerman manages to merge the worlds of planning and buying with ease. By day he does the planning and buying for TV, cable, syndication, radio, sponsorships, and out-of-home for clients like Party Poker. By night he's the father of two young daughters who inspire him and influence his media usage. Recently, Lumerman created a Party Poker segment on Fox Sports' "The Best Damn Sports Show" that included a branded Party Poker table and logos that appeared on the screen throughout the segment. Lumerman is skilled at translating murky planning guidelines into actionable media buys and is described as a "remarkable negotiator."

Name: Joe Maceda
Company: MindShare Worldwide
Title: Media Planner
Remember the home page takeovers for the Dove Night campaign on AOL and Yahoo? Joe Maceda was an integral part of the team that developed that element of the campaign. His communication skills, creativity, and strategic thinking continually push him to challenge the status quo, and Maceda easily shifts between thinking through the needs of both client and consumer. For example, during a brainstorming session when he worked on the All detergent account, Joe's observation that food courts are a prime venue for clothing stains led to a successful campaign in U.S. food courts. During planning for Dove's 2007 initiatives, Maceda was handed complete responsibility for the hand and body lotion category.

Name: Cindy Park
Company: Universal McCann, Los Angeles
Title: Associate Media Director
Cindy Park is known for her calm in the face of a storm of activity, and you can imagine there's always a twister brewing at Universal McCann, where she works on the Sony Pictures Entertainment team. Park analyzes fresh consumer insights, research, and creative changes on a daily basis for films like "The Da Vinci Code." "The biggest challenge is staying on top of new media opportunities in an industry where the technology is continually evolving," she says. To that end, developing creative and innovative ways to integrate appropriate new media platforms makes traditional media work more engaging and challenging, she says.

Name: Rachel Schlanger
Company: Initiative
Title: Supervisor, National Broadcast
Lauded by her colleagues for being professional, proactive, and efficient, Rachel Schlanger has the potential to be part of the next generation of industry leaders. Schlanger's energetic personality and ability to run with projects has landed her opportunities to play a key role on accounts like The Office of National Drug Control Policy, Cadbury Schweppes, Disaronno, Applebee's, Datek, The New York Times, and Mass Mutual. She also manages the day-to-day national broadcast buying for AOL, and was recently made responsible for evaluating the return on investment and strategic significance of AOL's use of Pod Puncher.