• by Joe Mandese , February 14, 2007

KSL Media, one of the biggest independent media services agencies not affiliated with a major holding company, is restructuring its management team with a focus on total communications planning. The move, which is being announced this morning, comes as most major agencies have made or are in the process of making the shift from conventional media planning and buying to a broader view of the communications mix. On Tuesday, for example, Publicis' Fallon unit announced that it was "recommitting" to "connection planning," a phrase the agency claims to have coined to describe its own holistic approach to the communications mix.

As part of its recommitment, Fallon said it had rehired John King, one of the original architects of its connection planning system, which the agency used to develop award-winning strategies and campaigns for clients such as Jim Beam, Subway, Holiday Inn, EDS, and Purina.

To manage its new communications practice, KSL is bringing in two highly regarded executives to its senior management team: Jeffrey Mahl, a high-profile media sales executive steeped in digital and interactive media as chief buying officer; and Tom Stolfi, a veteran strategic planner at MindShare, MPG and SFM Media, as corporate media director.

KSL, which dubs its approach "360° communications planning," begins with research and insights about consumer lifestyles and media habits and builds on communications strategies from there.

"This very much to the heart of who I am," said Stolfi, adding that he and Mahl would work on a team leveraging their experience in cross-platform deals and knowledge about consumer insights to create multi-dimensional strategies and campaigns that extend beyond traditional media plans.

Stolfi said the efforts always begin by creating "well defined" profiles of consumer lifestyles and media consumption habits.

Mahl, who has a depth of experience wrapping consumer oriented campaigns around broad media platforms at ESPN, AskJeeves, and Gemstar TV Guide, describes consumer profiles in terms of their affinity to branded media platforms, referring to "the ESPN consumer," or "the Discovery consumer."