• Online All Star: Letter from the Editor
    The word "star" has many connotations, but in an industry known for hyperbole, it may be an overused one at that. Which is why when omma magazine began recognizing the best and the brightest digital executives, we put the word "all" in front of it - to help clarify that people being celebrated in our annual awards are a cut above the rest. So welcome to the eighth annual edition of omma's All Stars, and the induction of nine new members - three each from three categories: media, creative and marketing.
  • Online All Star, Creative: Executive Creative Director and co-founder, Digitaria
    When Daiga Atvara left her native Latvia more than 18 years ago to head for California, she had few plans beyond making art amidst the giant redwoods of Humboldt County. She had been studying at The Academy of Arts in Riga, Latvia, when she won a scholarship to explore whatever discipline she liked at Humboldt State University. Enamored with the ideas of making things - very big things, as it turns out - Atvara chose sculpture. She spent the year mastering welding, bronze pouring and metal work, producing, among other objects, some gigantic metal birds that she says are probably …
  • Online All Star, Media Planner: Christine Chen
    A good media strategist knows what to do with a blank slate and with a storied campaign that's been in the market for nearly two decades. Christine Chen at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has handled both in the last year. Chen drives the communications strategy for the agency, whose clients include Sonic, The California Milk Processor Board's famous "Got Milk" campaign, and technology companies just starting to market their services. With a range of clients and a vast array of venues, from owned to earned to paid, a media strategist's job today runs the gamut from media planning to social …
  • Online All Star, Creative: George Tannenbaum
    George Tannenbaum is a high-level creative director with decades of experience. In fact, he's among the top ranks at r/ga as the executive creative director on the Ameriprise account. But check out his Web site, and you'll see that he proudly lists himself as a copywriter first, a creative director second and a grown-up third. "I'm very much linguistically keen," Tannenbaum says. "I like to look at words."
  • Online All Star, Marketer: Martine Reardon
    When asked about the evolution of Macy's digital strategy, chief marketing officer Martine Reardon responds with unusual candor. "Three years ago, we were barely in the digital space at all," she says. "The social space existed, but it was very contained. Smart-phone penetration wasn't there yet." Of course, within the retail sector, it wasn't just Macy's that arrived a bit late to the game; any number of sellers struggled (and continue to struggle) with the transition from garish full-page newspaper ads and radio spots to more progressive, analytics-minded digital programs. The difference was that Macy's, spurred forward by Reardon, was …
  • Online All Star, Marketer: Tony Pace
    As senior vice president and global chief marketing officer for Subway, Tony Pace oversees an enormous staff tasked with a wide range of brand-bolstering activities. For previous employers Young & Rubicam and McCann Erickson, Pace led the marketing charge on behalf of behemoth-scale clients like Coca-Cola, Capital One, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Exxon and Texas Instruments. But when asked about the most challenging job he's ever held, Pace starts talking about his college years. "To be honest, it might've been as an undergrad when I was the editor-in-chief of The Observer, the student paper at Notre Dame," he says, half-seriously. At …
  • Online All Star, Media Planner: John Montgomery
    John Montgomery, COO of GroupM Interaction, didn't necessarily set out to become an expert on all things media in the digital space. "There's never really been a conscious, 'Oh, I'm going to get into digital because that's where things are happening now.' My career just evolved that way," muses Montgomery, who first got into the media business in 1989 as media director at Ogilvy in his native South Africa. He also launched Mindshare in his home country and served as managing director of Cape Town's Ogilvy Group. He subsequently moved to Amsterdam for a post as ceo of Ogilvy Group …
  • Online All Star, Creative: Rei Inamoto
    "I don't really like advertising," Rei Inamoto will tell you. His celebrated work in the field is marked by the very same thing that brought him to the industry: his belief that there must be better ways. Many accolades and happy clients can testify that Inamoto is among the best at finding them. Some of his most lauded and successful work doesn't look very much like advertising at all, but more like products. And Inamoto's background has an awful lot to do with that.
  • Online All Star, Marketer: Jennifer Hanley
    It's no secret that Nationwide Insurance spends less money on ads and media placements than competitors Geico and Progressive do. As most sentient media-consuming beings have noticed, Geico and Progressive have ad-bought their way into ubiquity; for all intents and purposes, they're the broadcast and cable equivalent of the sky. Nationwide, on the other hand, allots its marketing and media dollars far less frivolously. It's a responsibility that Jennifer Hanley, senior vice president of brand marketing for Nationwide Insurance, takes quite seriously. "To be frank, the biggest challenges we face are external," she says. "With all the [marketing] spending that …
  • Online All Star, Media Planner: Quentin George
    Looking to offer insight into how he views his role overseeing the IPG Media Lab, Quentin George cites a joke about three easy ways to lose big money: gambling, divorce and innovation. The New York lab shows off all kinds of futuristic products and experiences that might seem as quixotic to a CMO as a 500-channel universe did in the Mad Men era. But George doesn't view the lab as a leisurely field trip destination for marketers and agency executives. Instead it's a chance for them to learn about solutions that can be rolled out now. Facial recognition, augmented reality, …
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