IPG’s chairman and CEO Michael Roth has worn several hats in his career. He was an accountant, a tax attorney and an insurance executive before he was tapped to lead one of the biggest ad holding companies in 2005.
What’s unique about the ad business?
“It has the best highs I’ve ever experienced in my business career and the worst lows,” Roth says in an interview with Beet.TV. “This industry brings out the best and the worst in relationships.”
Prior to coming to IPG, he was running Mutual of New York, an insurance company.
In the decade he’s been in the business, Roth observes that he’s seen it change dramatically with the continued rise of digital and more recently mobile. But more is bound to unfold in the next five years, and it’s going to become very competitive for ad agencies.
“Traditional advertising agencies have to change,” he says. “They have to embrace digital, they have to embrace technology, but yet they have to keep their creativity, because without creativity, this business isn’t as successful.”
This segment is part of Beet.TV’s “Media Revolutionaries,” a 50-part series of interviews with key innovators and leaders in the media, technology and advertising industries, sponsored by Xaxis and AOL. Xaxis is a unit of WPP.
Roth was interviewed for Beet.TV by David J. Moore, Chairman of Xaxis and President of WPP Digital.
