media revolutionaries

When you are sitting on as much data as David Kenny is, you can really move the needle. Over the years, The Weather Company CEO has spearheaded use of digital data to transform businesses. He has variously been president of network outfit Akami, managing partner of ad group VivaKi and co-founder of the digital ad company Digitas, acquired […]

These days, Tim Armstrong may be best known for running one of the world’s leading digital media businesses. But, two decades ago, when online media were just getting going, Armstrong made his first business foray by launching a print media business. It didn’t work out so well. In fact, the newspaper he launched with a friend, “Beginnings of Boston,” […]

He may have joined the company 44 years ago now, but Publicis’ advertising industry was just about the last one CEO Maurice Lévy had in mind when he was picking a career. “The reality is, I wanted to be a surgeon,” he confesses to Beet.TV in this video interview. “I just cannot stand blood, so I had to change. […]

In the narrative of media evolution, what was once new becomes old and, ultimately, becomes obsolete. But vinyl music is enjoying a bounce – so what chance a return for other media formats? “I’m seeing people beginning to pick up formats that were considered dead and reimagine them,” says Susan Lyne, the veteran media executive who […]

Riding the crest of a wave is a pretty good feeling. But the bigger lessons can come from falling off and hitting the bottom. Many a business guru is fond of the ironic value of failure. That’s a notion that the boss of one of the biggest ad groups subscribes to, too. “I’ve always learned more from […]

Why did you get in to advertising? For Brian Lesser, it was because his dad showed him the ropes. Now Lesser runs WPP-owned Xaxis, one of the technology companies helping make advertising more targeted and more relevant. “When I was a kid, my father ran advertising agencies … I always liked the commercials better than the […]

Steven R. Swartz isn’t the only business reporter to make it big on the business side of reporting. Sequoia venture capitalist Michael Moritz wrote for Time magazine before making tech investments, for example. But he is one of the few to have risen to the very top of the company he has worked in for […]

These days, Pets.com is part of internet folklore – an early dot.com juggernaut that, in its mission to sell pet supplies direct to consumers, burned bright, launching in August 1998 and going from an IPO to liquidation in 268 days. Carolyn Everson remembers the site with horror, too – but, for different reasons. Everson says the idea for a pet retail […]

CANNES – Joe Ripp has seen about as many incarnations of Time Inc. as there have been in the digital era. Joining in 1985 as an assistant comptroller, he eventually became SVP, CFO treasurer of the company in 1993 and, a few years later, served a AOL vice-chairman until 2004. After leaving the stable for senior […]

CANNES  — Over the last year, with more brands embracing ad tech platforms to undertake advertising activity themselves, and as more top-tier brands put their agency accounts back out to review, many have begun to wonder – is the ad agency over? But Bob Pittman doesn’t see it that way. Pittman, who oversaw the creation of MTV, led […]

Today, Tim Armstrong is credited with having turned around one media company, as the resurrection and recent sale of AOL suggests. But, in 1993, when a 23-year-old Armstrong was embarking on his first foray in to the media business, things weren’t quite so rosy. Fresh out of a six-month stint in investment banking, after realizing the […]

When Martin Sorrell bought in to WPP in 1985, it was the start of a journey that would end up making the world’s largest advertising holding group. What most people probably don’t know, however, is that, along the way, Sorrell nearly made a very costly mistake. Asked by Beet.TV in this video interview to regale his biggest career setback, […]

When advertising veteran Shelly Lazarus began her career more then 40 years ago, marketers dreamed then about truly being able to communicate one to one with customers. Now, that’s a reality and presents an enormous opportunity for the industry and those leading the digital charge. “When I was working in direct marketing we used to […]

Be a sponge. Don’t ever stop learning. That’s the key advice to new entrants in the ad business from industry veteran Wendy Harris Millard, president and COO of media consultancy MediaLink. “Be ever the student. Don’t ever stop understanding the broader context you are working in. Keep studying the industry,” she says, sharing with Beet.TV her […]

After two decades with the world’s largest ad media company by billings, the man they call “the king of advertising” is still hungry, still changing. Good job – advertising is about to change, a lot. “If someone were to watch me in any given day, I still read scripts from television shows, I still make calls on […]

We hear a lot about data science in advertising nowadays. But Gian Fulgoni may have been the trade’s original “Maths Man”. At university, he studied for a physics degree first and a masters in marketing second. That fusion eventually saw Fulgoni lead IRI, the first major supplier of point-of-sale scanner information to the consumer goods industry, in the 80s and […]

Sometimes, it takes a former reporter to tell you straight. Even if you don’t like the sound of what Randall Rothenberg has to say, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) president and CEO has a sharp and timely view from his vantage point at the top of the online ad industry. That view – you may see the […]

Keep your head down, stay focused and be competitive. That’s the advice of media industry veteran Michael I Roth, Chairman and CEO of Interpublic in this interview on the changing nature of the advertising business. “Don’t worry about this job, or someone else’s. Keep your head down and success will be recognized,” he says. “Always associate yourself […]

If you heard the economy was about to go in to “reverse”, you would probably be pretty worried. But consumers should actually welcome the coming era with open arms, according to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong – for, what he dubs “the reverse economy” will leave them richer. “Corporations make a tremendous amount of profit from individual consumers giving […]

This time last year, Forbes magazine wrote Scott Ferber “has what it takes to be world-class business builder”. After all, six years after founding the online ad network Advertising.com with his brother in 1998, a 35-year-old Ferber sold the company to AOL for a hefty $495m. Many a founder would have taken the opportunity to cash […]