Media & Search “Rank and File” People to Watch 2008

June 9th, 2008 Jackie

For the past twelve years, Ad Age has released a report titled “Women to Watch” which is, in their words, “a special report on the women in advertising, marketing and media whose accomplishments and potential have made them standouts.”

The 2008 Women to Watch are primarily women who work for large global, and extremely corporate entities the likes of which include Mindshare (owned by WPP), Citi, General Motors, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson and MediaVest (a company that calls its media planners “media architects”).

I don’t get it. Hooray for women’s lib and all but, seriously, what makes these women “women to watch?” Aren’t the women to watch at the bottom, kicking and clawing their way up? I mean, good for you if you’re the Media Director at McDonald’s Worldwide, but this doesn’t make you an out-of-the box thinker. Hell, if I had 810 million dollars to spend on media, I think I could get pretty creative too.

On the other hand, if I was in charge of that much money, I’d probably just hire someone smart to be creative for me. And, come to think of it, when you have that much money to spend on media, you don’t really have to be creative. Try stretching a 20,000 budget across six months. You’ve got to put your thinking cap on.

It’s the small agencies, the junior planners and the start-ups on a shoestring that have the big ideas. The little guys have to really get creative to compete with big corporations.

These are the people and companies I work with every day. These are truly the people to watch. I want to give props to all the hard workers out there that are shaping the way we do business in online marketing and search. Oh and I’m not sticking to just women. We’re all in this together.

Jackie Dooley’s Media & Search People to Watch - 2008

Note: thefreedictionary.com defines “rank and file” as: People who constitute the main body of any group

Nick Lindauer, Director of Search Engine Marketing @ Torque | FKMA

At just twenty-six years old Nick has risen to the director role of Torque | FKM, an agency based in Houston. I met Nick in 2005 while freelancing for Acronym Media (a small SEM shop in NYC). He comprised their entire SEO department. Just Nick. He went on to work at NEO (the search division of Ogilvy) and in just two years rose to lead a team of twelve. During this entire time, Nick was the sole proprietor of an online retail store that sold specialty hot sauce. His tiny NYC apartment was lined with inventory. He did all the SEO for the site and it was naturally ranked at the very top of Google for the term “hot sauce.” He sold the business for a nice profit when he moved to Texas. Nick is a search marketing genius. He’s made me realize that anyone worth their salt in search marketing should have a rough idea of how to build a web site and/or maintain a blog.

Tessa Ohlendorf, Internet Marketer - Self-Employed

I met Tessa in 2006 while I was working at the world’s smallest online media buying and planning shop in NYC. There were five of us then, and I was the only one who really knew anything about online marketing until Tessa came along. Tessa is a savvy online media planner who has no trouble pulling all nighters, pitching in front of clients and pulling together a plan in less time than it takes most people to do their taxes. She can negotiate make goods and bonus inventory better than anyone I know, and she’s great at pulling interactive teams together on the fly, based on a the needs of a given client or project. I’m really impressed by how Tessa is able to enjoy her love of traveling without missing a beat at work. Since she’s a sole proprietor, she is extremely mobile. In the past two years she’s set up shop in Canada, New York City, California and most recently the Hamptons on Long Island. She knows her stuff and I’d definitely count her as a woman to watch for 2008.

Ula Tuszewicka, Online Marketing Consultant - Self Employed

It is the rare online marketer who can claim expertise in both media planning and search, but Ula can do both with equal skill. She’s worked on both large and small campaigns, and can set up a search campaign from the preliminary keyword list and see it through to the final report. I’ve referred Ula to more than one colleague over the past couple of years because she is so versatile and, like Tessa, is able to set up shop wherever she lands (she lives in Seattle but travels to Poland frequently to visit family). For me Ula represents the ultimate “woman to watch” in media. She understands the industry on her own terms, and actually gets things done. She’s an example of someone who jumped off the corporate ladder in disgust, and began building her own dreams based on an industry she fully understands.

Karin Blake, Search Account Manager, Retail - Avenue A | Razorfish

I worked briefly with Karin on some projects for Avenue A | Razorfish last year. At the time she’d been managing a very large retail campaign for a high profile lingerie vendor (and yes, it is THAT company). She knew everything there is to know about Atlas and patiently showed me how to traffic a campaign. Karin is young, extremely bright and an up and comer in the industry. I asked her to write a few words about herself…

“I started at AA|RF in 2005 after studying the moderately unrelated topic of Anthropology at Columbia. I think I was number 8 or so of the search team at that point in time (and 22.5 years old), and I sat in the corner next to a printer for about 4 months while we built the search program of a major financial services client. Over the next 3 years and a few acquisitions later, the search team scaled 4x in personnel and however many times over in $$, and I now lead AA|RF’s NY Retail Search group. I have a team of 5 search managers, covering 6 different clients. I have a search box tattooed on my back (just kidding). But I’ve thought about it.”

Ad Age doesn’t often write about the 22 year old who gets stuck pivoting spreadsheets next to the printer for 8 hours a day, but that’s why I’m here! Kudos to Karin, for making the industry a smarter place.

**more to come**

Entry Filed under: E-Marketing Advice