From massive holding company to tiny incubators, MEDIA magazine salutes the men and women shaping the industry’s future
This is the part where I’m supposed to explain
the rationale behind these awards, what our criteria are, and why we picked the people and organizations being recognized here as best-in-class as MEDIA’s annual agencies and agents of
the year. And even though I’ve written this many times before, I know it bears repeating, because our approach is so different than others who do awards like these. So let me dispense with the
criteria first.
These awards recognize the agencies and agents — including clients, suppliers and individuals — who best demonstrated three things to us over the past 12 months:
strategic vision, innovation, and industry leadership. I think the word demonstrated is important to emphasize here, because it could well be that there are others out there doing an incredible job
with those criteria, but we only know what we know, and we only know it by what we’ve been told and shown — either directly, or by covering the people and organizations we celebrate here.
Some of the winners have had little or no direct contact with MEDIA magazine; others have opened their doors and brought us into incredibly internal things that have helped inform us.
But we also know there are others out there with great vision, doing innovative things that are leading the industry, and that for reasons unique to them, simply don’t want, don’t
know how, or are afraid to tell us about it. We respect that. In the meantime, we’ll continue to recognize those who can.
So I was proud to recognize MPG as our Agency of the Year,
for the third consecutive year, just like I was proud to recognize some version of Starcom MediaVest Group for each of the five years before that, and for being named our Network of the Year this
year. These agencies are great at seeing where the world of media is headed, getting out in front of it, and shaping it for their organizations, their clients and the rest of us, too.
But
the truth is, a lot of agencies are doing that, and this year’s selections were tougher than ever, because we are seeing signs that organizations that typically kept such things close to their
vests are finally loosening up. That’s why we named GroupM our Holding Company of the Year, both for MEDIA and for our sister magazine, OMMA. I hope others will follow, because
it means we will get richer stories, richer insights about the industry, and the industry will be better for it.
Good, now that that obligatory part is out of the way, let me take a moment
to reflect on some patterns I’ve observed about this year’s selections. And they are the kind that only become apparent after stepping back and looking at them after the fact. The first,
and most obvious one is the incredible amount of “girl power” behind our reasoning. And if it isn’t already apparent to you, take a moment and reflect on who is running the
organizations we’ve picked: Maria Luisa Francoli at MPG, Laura Desmond at Starcom MediaVest Group, Lisa Donohue at Starcom, Jacki Kelley at UM, Connie Garrido at Posterscope, Jacquie Corbelli at
BrightLine, and Beth Comstock at GE (in partnership with the boys at OMD).
Yes, some of our other winners and contenders are still dominated by male cultures, but I think the fact that so
many women aren’t just leading our industry’s organizations, but are the ones leading the organizations that are leading our industry, is telling.
So now let me tell you about
some girl power leading this organization. If it wasn’t already apparent from our masthead, this is the first issue being edited by Sarah Mahoney who, while not new to MEDIA parent
MediaPost, is the new editor of this magazine. And we are lucky to have her. Sarah happens to be female, but she is also one of the best journalists I’ve ever worked with of any gender.