MediaLink

ORLANDO — Almost 12 months after strategic advisory firm MediaLink was off-loaded by Cannes Lions organizer Ascential to talent agency UTA, CEO Michael Kassan is happy with the firms’ amicable “divorce”. Kassan’s company joined Ascential in 2017. In this video interview with Beet.TV at the ANA Masters of Marketing, he says the new focus is […]

Welcome to this episode of the BeetCast. I hope you’ve had good,  relaxing summer. Here in the Beet patch  we are ramping up with a number of projects including our weekly podcast.  We are very pleased to be back for a new season – and a huge thanks to Transunion for sponsoring. We are kicking […]

LONDON – Cannes Lions, the most anticipated and consequential advertising and media gathering, has been forced to be  virtual for another year. But this year’s offering will be much more robust, explains Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions and head of the events business at Ascential. The biggest change is that the Lions, the awards […]

After a year of unpredictability, brands are striving to get closer to guaranteed business outcomes. But, to do that to best effect, they are going to need to start acting before the campaign has ended. That is the view of Wenda Harris Millard, the industry veteran who is now vice chairman at strategic advisory MediaLink. […]

The number of subscription video-on-demand services may be multiplying toward possible “subscription fatigue”, and there may still only be 24 hours in any given day. But could transportation technology change the game? A growing number of media leaders thinks so. In this video interview with Beet.TV, cross-disciplinary media consultancy MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan says a content […]

On the heels of its recent investment in OTT data specialist Tru Optik, TransUnion has acquired people-based marketing technology provider TruSignal. Both relationships will help to enhance TransUnion’s role as an “enabler” that helps map consumer identities in a complex, multi-platform world, says the Matt Spiegel, the company’s EVP of Digital Marketing Solutions and Head […]

Back in November, we reported how MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan was seeking out some big-name entertainment companies to serve as foundational partners for Connect Learn Explore (CLX), a new strand at Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity. With just a few weeks to go before the annual ad industry shindig kicks off in June, it […]

As the “battle of the titans” in streaming television rages on, advertising won’t be going away anytime soon, according to MediaLink’s Michael Kassan. “I think it’s going to have to find its level,” the Chairman & CEO says in this interview with Beet.TV at the 2019 Digital Content NewFronts. “I think it has to be […]

ORLANDO—The latest report on marketers taking certain activities in-house as opposed to using agencies comes as both sides need to produce more growth and profits. “Everybody’s under pressure at the same time,” observes MediaLink Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan. Noting margin inadequacies at agencies and profit-and-loss challenges at marketers, it’s logical to take a close […]

ORLANDO – After a few years in which the advertising business seemed to get consumed by numbers and efficiency, is creativity returning the fold? If the agenda for next year’s upcoming Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is anything to go by, it certainly is. In a new addition to the advertising festival’s agenda, CLX (“Connect. Learn. […]

COLOGNE – Strategic advisory firm MediaLink considers itself as occupying “the intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment and technology.” To say it’s a busy place to be is an understatement, according to Chairman & CEO Michael Kassan. “We are in an absolute state of transformation. I’ll be kind, I used to say chaos. It’s controlled […]

COLOGNE – To Michael Kassan, there could not be a better time for The Relevance Conference that AT&T will host later this month. “I think the name speaks for itself. We are at a point in time where we all are kind of drowning in information,” he says. Not only will AT&T unveil the name […]

It is now over a year since some US TV networks came together to strive for commonality in how they tap the opportunity of advanced TV ad targeting. Now, it seems, they want to kick it up in to the next gear. Last year, Fox, Turner and Viacom teamed to co-found OpenAP, a new consortium to […]

CANNES – How does a huge marketer like Nissan convince its procurement people to explore new, non-traditional ways of reaching audiences and measuring those efforts? “We have this kind of internal joke that right now we have more pilots than American Airlines,” is how Allyson Witherspoon, Nissan’s GM for Global Brand Engagement, explained it. At […]

It’s no coincidence that TV companies are facing a challenge to retain ad spend migrating to digital ecosystems run by the big native behemoths. Several initiatives and companies are now trying to tackle that problem. But what will it really take for TV to become a “platform”? In this panel discussion moderating by MediaLink’s Matt […]

CANNES – People in advertising and media disagree about many things, but a more consumer-centric approach to both video content and advertising is a big exception. This was more than evident during a panel discussion at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as part of the FreeWheel Forum on the Future of Television. […]

CANNES – Shortened by one day this year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity attracted fewer agency people. But there was a 30% increase in attendance by brand marketers and a 20% rise in the number of consulting firms, according to MediaLink Vice Chairman Wenda Harris Millard. So the Festival is still a “very […]

CANNES – At gatherings like the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, audience segmentation strategies have been been front and center for the past few years. “I think now that a lot of learning discussions have come out we’ve come back to if you do that type of targeting, what are you going to say […]

When The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta decided to take a hard look at companies that are dependent upon advertising, he came away seeing “frenemies” everywhere—all of them facing “existential assault.” The resulting book, being released today after three years of research, is titled Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else). […]

What separates WPP from the dodo? One is an extinct animal – but could the ad agency holding group also about to become one, too? In recent months, many agency holding groups have reported revenue trending down and share prices have fallen, after challenges including the rise of brands buying direct from online platforms. And […]