• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 23, 2006

Mike Drexler, one of Madison Avenue's best known, and once among it's most influential media directors, is retiring as part of a further restructuring of Optimedia, the alternative brand within Publicis' ZenithOptimedia Group. Antony Young, a fast-rising executive who most recently was CEO of ZenithOptimedia's U.K. group, will succeed Drexler who officially retires as CEO of the U.S. operations this summer.

The move is another chapter in the saga of Optimedia, still a relatively small media services brand in the U.S., but one that carries significant weight in some international markets where it actually dominates the Zenith brand.

The move appears to signal intentions to grow the Optimedia in the states as a genuine challenger brand, after years of being subordinated by Zenith, and following a period of pronounced executive turnover. Optimedia, which was formed when Zenith acquired independent media agency DeWitt Media Inc., over the past several years has lost much of its top management, including the heads of research, new business, new media and national broadcast.

Earlier this year, Bob Flood, the agency's oldest employee, left as executive vice president-director of national electronic, to head new media sales for MTV Networks. He was subsequently replaced by Larry Novenstern, the former head of national broadcast at Deutsch Inc., which was followed by the departure of another long-time Madison Avenue media exec, Bob Lilley who left as the agency's new business director. In April, Optimedia replaced local broadcast chief Linda Pittman with Ellen Drury, who joined from MediaVest.

"We now enter a new chapter of Optimedia's development in the US," Tim Jones, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Group in the U.S. said in a statement, implying that the new direction would "focus on integrated communications and marketing ROI." That's interesting, because Zenith's current branding statement is that it is "the ROI agency."

Young, a native New Zealander with experience managing media operations in some major international markets, including the U.K. and Hong Kong, has an intimate knowledge of Zenith's tools, culture and strategic thinking, and has worked for global brands including Sony, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, HSBC, Nokia, Procter & Gamble and Toyota.

Young, who will transfer from London to New York, is replaced by Gerry Boyle, managing director of ZenithOptimedia's U.K. group, will succeed him as CEO in that market.

The retirement of Mike Drexler, meanwhile, marks the end of an era for an executive whose career spanned 40 years on Madison Avenue, where he led some of the finest media organizations, including the media departments of DDB, Bozell, Bozell's TN Media, and ultimately Optimedia. He also had a short stint as a senior executive at San Francisco-based Media Smith.

Earlier in his career, Drexler was known as something of a wunderkind, emerging in his early 30s as the then youngest media director of a major agency when he took the helm of DDB's media department. Known for his outspokenness and zest for the new, Drexler was one of the first media executives to formalized a "new media department" at DDB, which focused on the then emerging medium of cable TV, but also explored a variety of new media forms such as audiotext, teletext, interactive kiosks and other digital media that became the foundation of the Internet.