The IAB's new CEO sits down with our editor in chief to talk about the future of interactive, why the challenge to Nielsen and comScore, and more.

Introduction 
The Super CMO 
Social media versus complexity 
Think "web first" 
The IAB's challenge to Nielsen and comScore 
Making online safe for digital immigrants 

Randall Rothenberg is the president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for interactive marketing in the United States.

In January, Randall Rothenberg assumed the reins at the IAB, shortly after which industry observers began to note a flurry of important activity. Of the many IAB initiatives, the one that has received the most attention is an open letter to Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore to have their panel-based methodologies certified by a third party like the Media Rating Council (MRC).

This month, I had the privilege of a pair of long and wide-ranging telephone conversations with Mr. Rothenberg about the state of marketing, interactive's place within the larger media universe, how marketing and marketers must change, what it is going to take to make interactive safe for "digital immigrants," why the MRC audit is so important, as well as what's going on generally with the IAB.

Brad Berens: You came to the IAB from a long and prestigious history as a journalist of advertising, both at The New York Times and then at Advertising Age. What is it like making the move from a journalist covering the industry, to being an advocate for one part of the industry?

Randall Rothenberg: Well, it is important to point out that I actually was not a journalist for most of the past decade. I spent seven years at Booz Allen Hamilton, which is a global strategy and technology consulting firm with offices in dozens of countries around the world, and does work for commercial clients and government clients. I started out there in 1999 as the senior director of thought leadership activities. I then became chief marketing officer, and then ran business development for functional practices. And, during the last two, two and a half years, I spent somewhere around thirty/forty percent of my time doing direct client facing work in the consumer media practice. So, I spent most of the past decade as a senior executive at a four billion dollar consulting company.

Berens: Fair, but at some point you made the transition. And then also, I think it is a little bit different to be a representative of a company versus a representative of an entire industry.

Rothenberg: That is absolutely true. It is interesting, and it is invigorating and it is challenging. There are some similarities: a consulting firm is a partnership, and the IAB is a large global partnership.

Partnership structures generally have flat hierarchies, similarly empowered people, and if you are on the infrastructure side of that kind of business -- as I was -- you are basically dealing with an association of members, all of whom have interests, all of whom have needs, all of whom have demands of some sort or another. What you are trying to do is triage those, while at the same time assure that the interests of the whole are being served. And so, there are certain similarities between a consulting firm and a trade association, although I do not want to go too far there.

Berens: How much of your practice at Booz Allen focused on interactive media?

Rothenberg: As I said, I spent about thirty percent of my time with the consumer media practice at Booz Allen. And, interactive was -- between 2004 and the time I left -- a dramatically growing part of that business. And, it is actually relevant to why I came here. During the last eighteen to twenty-four months at Booz Allen, it was as if every chief marketing officer in the Fortune 1000 sat up, looked outside his or her office, and said, “Oh, my God. Interactive happened! And, we need to get up to speed.” We saw that reflected at Booz Allen, and obviously, you see it reflected in the media marketing landscape gallery.

Next: The Super CMO