• by Steve Sternberg , Featured Columnist, September 6, 2016

Fifteen years ago this week, Bill Cella, Larry Blasius, Lynne Johnston, and I started a new little division within Interpublic called MAGNA Global.  It changed the model of how commercial television time was bought at media agencies, and over the next few years, became one of the strongest research forces in the industry.

It is never easy to champion new ideas and new ways of doing things, and we did meet formidable resistance in and out of our own company. 

Nielsen didn’t know how to deal with a company like MAGNA, and I had to persuade them over a year or two, why we should have access to all the data our IPG agencies had, even though we technically had no specific clients of our own. 

We were basically a new and different type of entity. 

All Initiative and Universal McCann clients were also our clients . They had their own research departments to deal with their own planners, buyers and clients day-to-day research needs. But they also had us, and we provided more big-picture and general research studies that went to everyone. 

Nielsen had to create a new category to accommodate us —something Nielsen does not like to do.

These were the glory days of agency media research and MAGNA was right in the middle of it. 

MAGNA was created when Interpublic bought True North. I was in charge of television research at TN Media at the time, which merged with Initiative. As is usually the case with mergers, many people (about 40% of TN Media’s staff) lost their jobs.  But no one in research was let go. 

TN Media’s research group was folded into Initiative, while I was put in charge of building MAGNA’s research operation. 

At one time, for a brief shining moment, IPG research included, in addition to myself, Ira Sussman, Susan Nathan, Stacey Schulman, Jon Swallen, David Ernst, Whitey Chapin, Michael Orgera, John Mossawir, Lisa Quan, Dana Sheats, Barbara Pokorny, and Brian Hughes.  A “murderer’s row” research lineup.  People often joked at industry research committee meetings that it seemed like an Interpublic gathering.

We were involved in significant research projects that were often groundbreaking.  The numerous media reports and white papers we produced were influential and widely quoted in both the consumer and trade press, as well as broadcast and cable networks in their own presentations to the industry. 

Our three years of Commercial Pod Studies greatly influenced (if not leading directly) to C3 commercial minute measurement becoming marketplace currency.

It was a great time to be in media research, and I remain extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish in those early days.  I left MAGNA in 2009, but from what I can see, the research component hasn’t lost a step, and may have gained quite a few. 

Happy 15^th birthday MAGNA!