• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 22, 2012

Yahoo’s content partnership with Procter & Gamble may be fresh, but according to Yahoo chief Ross Levinsohn, it’s not really a new model between a marketer and a media company. In fact, he says it’s one of the oldest.

“My My first job was working at a competing agency,” Levinsohn told Cannes Lions moderator and Publicis chief Maurice Levy, adding, that he began his career on Madison Avenue working at Procter & Gamble Productions (sort of a unit of old P&G agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, which technically was not a competing agency of Publicis’ but was ultimately merged into Publicis’ Saatch and Zenith Optimedia units).

“They produced soap operas,” Levinsohn recalled, adding, “Which were really the first sponsor-driven, sponsor-created programming. And we’re here years later figuring out how we enhance brands… in ways that aren’t just a 30-second spot.”