Jim Meskauskas is chief strategic officer for Underscore Marketing, a next-generation media and strategy shop founded in May of 2002. Meskauskas started out in traditional media planning for Nestle and Burger King, and has worked as a planner at Left Field and as a Media Supervisor at Hawk Media and at USWeb/CKS. He also was the chief internet strategist and media account director at Mediasmith. A founding board member of the Society for Internet Advancement in San Francisco, Meskauskas also writes for several online publications, including iMediaConnection.
iMedia Connection: What's your biggest frustration these days?
Meskauskas: The biggest frustration these days seems to be a continuing lack of standardization among the top publishers of creative units, both in terms of dimensions and file sizes. There are still so many different ad units on any given page that often times the people representing the sites themselves are confused. Traffic coordinators contacting agencies for required sizes that those at the agency never bought, last minute unit size changes due to site redesign, and general inconsistency among file loads are a regular bane of my existence.
An equal frustration is a continuing lack of respect from account management for the time and energy it takes to research, plan and execute a successful online media campaign. More and more media agencies and departments are treated like juke boxes, where a coin is dropped, a button pushed, and everyone expects to hear the song they like. Regardless of what some pundits may say, media is still, by and large, the red-headed step child of the advertising family and its continuing commodification isn't helping.
iMedia Connection: What's easier this year than last?
Meskauskas: Working with AOL is by far the biggest pleasure I've had working with a publisher in recent years. For those of us who hail originally from a traditional media background, it is nice to receive the kind of attention and service that media planners and buyer used to regularly receive from offline publishers and broadcast outlets. They are among the few publishers that don't disappear once the IO is signed. The rest of the online publishing community could learn a lot, especially now that the market is picking up and some of the old arrogances are creeping back in.
iMedia Connection: What's one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Meskauskas: Since fall of 2003, we have worked on the online branding campaign for Schering-Plough's Claritin brand, introducing it as a prescription-strength allergy medication available over the counter. I would say that what contributed most to the success of this campaign were large-sized ad units, and what I like to call "ubiquity opportunities," such as road blocks. Full Screen Ads on iVillage and road blocks on CNN.com were instrumental getting us high cume really fast -- communicating Claritin's brand attributes to the widest number of people in the shortest period of time.
iMedia Connection: What's one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Meskauskas: I can tell you that our DR efforts for Claritin were among the most successful. What made it successful -- alas, I cannot say.
iMedia Connection: Have any of your clients successfully utilized any emerging technologies, such as IM, wireless, iTV, etc.?
Meskauskas: Actually, no.
iMedia Connection: Are you working with search and local search for your clients? Why? And how's it going?
Meskauskas: A little, but not much.
iMedia Connection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?
Meskauskas: We are telling them "Use it, use it, use it!" Though I always cringe at the moniker of "rich media" because to me it should eventually all be just "media." Saying "rich media" is like saying "electro-vacuum" or putting the letter ‘e' in front of anything having to do with the Internet. But there is no doubt that bigger, more engaging creative is better than smaller, less engaging creative. If it can move, walk, talk -- well, maybe not talk -- the creative is bound to do better. Even video (of which I am, personally, no fan) I've used for a client pulled extremely well with users. Rich media is THE media to be using in almost all instances where noticing value is imperative.
iMedia Connection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?
Meskauskas: Though it is capable of creating an "engagement branding" experience, it still cannot make me "feel." It is not capable of carrying emotional import. Though, in my opinion, it doesn't need to. Unlike many Internet zealots who still think the medium is the end-all, be-all; I feel that the Internet shouldn't be used to replace extant media forms but compliment them. I don't need online advertising to make me sentimental about my family or have warm thoughts about house pets. I've got TV for that.
iMedia Connection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?
Meskauskas: Just because the market is improving doesn't mean that you can treat me with disrespect. Don't tell me how you don't need my money so badly that you won't offer me the rates I'm trying to negotiate, and then keep me on the phone a half hour to explain how things are so great for you and so you don't need to sell to me. That's bad form, it doesn't really make any sense, the rest of your business isn't my concern, and finally, it demonstrates you do not understand that this is still a relationship business. Do you really want me out there telling all my peers in the about this experience? And, if you know me at all, do you really want my analysis of the situation out there in the ether? I know I wouldn't!
iMedia Connection: Are you having issues with Terms and Conditions?
Meskauskas: Only with a few publishers, mostly second-tier and trade publishers. Yahoo, AOL, iVillage, NYTimes and others have no problem with them. But there are a few who still make me feel like I either a.) need a law degree to work through the issues, or b.) need to teach folks some of the fundamentals of the English language.
iMedia Connection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? How are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?
Meskauskas: Yes, actually, we are, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at how we are seen as an important, if sometimes mysterious, part of the marketing mix. We work with a number of agencies that handle offline duties for clients and though sometimes not everyone understands everything we do, they are accepting of our role and often times open to our insight. And so far, the offline partners have ALWAYS respected our contributions.
iMedia Connection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?
Meskauskas: It would be nice if more clients understood that just because the medium we deal in is carried on a computer, it doesn't mean that work can happen with the push of the ENTER key.
iMedia Connection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?
Meskauskas: That they have the most to benefit from providing good, human service. Over-reliance on impersonal methods of communication like email mediates too much a relationship, making the buyer less interested each go-round to give money to that publisher. Remember, I'm giving YOU money, not the other way around. And, PLEASE CALL if there's something that you don't understand. In the last few weeks, there have been some complications (minor, but complications) with a publisher. Though there was a moment where things could have gotten tense, the representative at the site had the sense of mind to actually pick up the phone and make sure that things didn't spiral out of control. It is a lot harder to be rude and get angry with someone who is represented just by word in an email than it is with a person whose voice you hear. We could actually all do better to remember that we are dealing with people and not just email accounts.
iMedia Connection: What remains the industry's biggest stumbling block?
Meskauskas: Standardization. I know it is repetitive, but it is true. As soon as we can stop worrying about dozens of different rich media specs and creative types, agencies will be able to start yielding greater efficiency and publishers will be able to turn campaigns around faster on their end. This means everyone makes more money; agencies can yield higher margins and/or work on more projects and publishers can clear buys faster with fewer make goods.
iMedia Connection: What are you reading these days?
Meskauskas: Epic of Gilgamesh, Innovator's Solution by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, Markings, by Dag Hammarskjold, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
iMedia Connection: And finally, tell us something we don't know yet, but that we will this year.
Meskauskas: A publisher, or publishers, will successfully monetize audience-based media currency, finally connecting advertising with people instead of just impressions.
