• by May 26, 2006

They're in the media vanguard

Welcome to OMMA's 2006 Rising Stars! We invited you to nominate the most stellar up-and-comers you know  and you did. We received lots of nominees, individuals who distinguish themselves by taking unconventional approaches to media challenges and turning good plans into brilliant ones. While we scrapped the age requirement, we sought people who continue to grow, evolve, and achieve in their careers. We eliminated nominees with puffy titles like CEO, vice president, or managing director, and we narrowed the search to agency talent. We looked for nominees who are slightly beyond entry-level and swimming toward mid-career, though not necessarily 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.

Tim Glover

Empower MediaMarketing, Cincinnati, Ohio

Interactive Strategist, Account Manager, Media Planner, and Team Leader

As one of Empower's lead interactive strategists, Glover helps move traditional advertisers into online media. He spearheaded online advertising for Paramount's Kings Island with campaigns for season pass and ticket sales, branding/awareness, and employee recruitment. Since Glover joined Empower in 2004, nearly 60 percent of the agency's clients are using online media, a significant jump.

Ryan Griffin

MediaVest, New York, NY

Assistant Media Director

Griffin has led all of Coca-Cola's digital media brand integration for the Academy Awards, NBCOlympics.com, NCAA March Madness, NASCAR, and the launch of MyCokeRewards  and that was just in the first quarter of 2006. Scott Witt, now of Publicis Groupe's Denuo, calls Griffin "not only a rising star but a rock star. Ryan is a game-changer... always two or three steps ahead and entirely self-directed."

James Kiernan

MediaVest, New York, NY

Associate Director, Digital Media & Innovation

Kiernan has been at MediaVest since 2004, where he's helped Procter & Gamble embrace new media platforms and develop the brand's on-demand video model for the 2005-'06 broadband upfront. Kiernan's instincts led P&G brand Old Spice to sponsor CBS' NCAA March Madness on Demand, which drew more than 268,000 simultaneous streams. He also finessed the SecretSparkle instant messaging program that encouraged teen girls to IM beauty, fashion, and music questions to the SecretSparkle chat bot.

Brian Krick

Avenue A/Razorfish, Philadelphia, Pa.

Associate Media Director

Krick stays focused on doing what works, not necessarily what's cool, a lesson he learned from the dot-com bust of 2000. Krick has been responsible for more than $50 million in media, including high-profile brand launches from the likes of Clarinex and FluMist, and has led his department to more than double its size in two years. Krick keeps proving his mantra time and time again: By steering away from the pack, you can get ahead of it.

Joy Lin

Agency.com, New York, NY

Associate Media Director

Joy Lin, a classical musician who studied sociology in college, began her media career at OgilvyOne, then joined Agency.com in 2003 as a media manager. At Agency, Lin deployed synchronized rich-media ad banners and leveraged content partnerships with gaming networks and portals to promote Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" last July. For Audible.com's "Don't Read" campaign, Lin's strategy drove 10,000 registrations in six weeks for the downloadable books site. Lin says, "Online media is really now; it's constantly shifting and changing. 

Andrew Pimentel

Avenue A/Razorfish, New York, NY

Senior Strategy Manager

Pimentel deploys a laser-like understanding of user research to help media companies create unique brand experiences on the Web. Currently working with Condé Nast to develop the Web strategy for its as-yet-unnamed business publication, set to debut in 2007, Pimentel is also helping other publications in the Condé Nast stable define their Web and multichannel strategies. Pimentel regularly briefs clients and analysts on the rise of social media and the youth digital market.

Sarah K. Allen Potemkin

Carat Fusion, San Francisco, Calif.

Engagement Specialist, Media Supervisor

Since starting her career in advertising, Potemkin has been a champion of transforming data into strategic learning and direction for her clients. She can frequently be heard asking her agency peers, "Is this just data for data's sake, or are we providing [real] information?" She currently leads online media on the Kodak account, and recently spearheaded a sponsorship and contest with DailyCandy.com, a first for the client.

Philip Shih

Starcom MediaVest Group's SMG Search, Chicago, Ill.

Company Manager

Philip Shih began as an intern at GM Planworks in Detroit and quickly rose through the ranks to become a manager last fall. At SMG Search, which launched in January, Shih develops search strategies across General Motors Corp. businesses and advises clients and agency peers on how to integrate search into the overall media mix. "I jumped in at the right time, because there was nothing set in stone," Shih says.

Kim Spiegelberg 

Organic, San Francisco, Calif.

Media Supervisor

Oklahoma native Kim Spiegelberg, who has tenaciously pursued a media career, now manages digital media programs for the Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Broadcast, and Fox Home Entertainment divisions of client Twentieth Century Fox. A relentless negotiator who believes that media and creative are inextricably linked, she says: "I love interactive and there's no place I'd rather be...I work every day to be a good mentor for my team."

Matt Van Dalsem

Mediasmith Inc., San Francisco, Calif.

Media Supervisor

Van Dalsem came to Mediasmith armed with an MBA from Pepperdine University; now half a dozen planners and buyers report to him on accounts including HedgeStreet, Amerisave, BusinessWeek Online, and the National Geographic Channel. A former colleague says Van Dalsem performed "miracles" on the Napster account in 2004-'05. David Smith, Mediasmith's CEO, says: "He gets things from a big-picture perspective even when he's toiling down in the trenches."