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John Dooner knows clout. He delivered it to McCann-Erickson when he served as CEO of Interpublic Group of Cos.' largest agency network from 1994 until March 2000. Under his watch, McCann tripled its billings. In 1997, Dooner formed McCann-Erickson WorldGroup, a "marketing communications" management company with $20 billion in worldwide billings.
New Year's Day will mark the end of Dooner's first year as CEO of IPG. When the 52year-old former media planner took over the spot from Phil Geier, he again had clout in mind-this time aiming to increase what was already the highest clout quotient in the mediaagency world. In June, IPG acquired True North Communications for $2.1 billion. And in July, Dooner completed a sweeping reorganization of the advertising holding company and its worldwide media operation.
As part of the realignment, Initiative Media Worldwide absorbed True North's FCB Media and its $5 billion in billings. Initiative also became the media buying hub for IPG's Partnership group, which includes Deutsch, Lowe and other sibling shops. Initiative's global billings rose to $21 billion, pushing the former Western International Media (purchased by IPG in 1994) to the top spot on the list of global media networks. Universal McCann, the unbundled arm of McCann-Erickson WorldGroup, is eighth in the world with nearly $13 billion. In September, Dooner's IPG launched Magna Global, the first worldwide media-negotiation company. Representing all of IPG's worldwide media clients, Magna accounts for $40 billion in billings.
ADWEEK: Let's start with the big picture. What is the role and relative importance of media to advertising today?
DOONER: Nobody denies the migration from advertising solution to marketing-communications solutions. The role of media [in that process] is that complexity, diversity and fragmentation have created more of a need for sophisticated tools in the strategic-planning area. And many of those tools can be adapted to broader marketing communications. We could take all the marketing-communications tools-whether event marketing, public relations or promotions- and turn them into media. I think that is a very natural evolution.
ADWEEK: Yet it always comes down to, "How cheap can we buy?"
DOONER: The cost of entry is optimal efficiency,...