Business development head says online creative is richer, placements more complex.
Young Lee is the director of business development for Expedia, Inc. Young is responsible for integrated strategic partnerships and online distribution. Prior to joining Expedia, Inc., Young was a part of the business development group at Amazon.com, served as general counsel & VP of business development at Software Labs, and practiced corporate litigation for a Seattle law firm.
iMediaConnection: What was your biggest online "win" this year, and how did you sell it throughout the company?
Lee: Our biggest win didn't come from a single online distribution partnership, but came when our company dedicated more online account management resources to our marketing team. It wasn't hard to sell this throughout our company -- it was easy to see that we needed more people and more tools to optimize our current online partnerships and to plan for our future online partnerships.
iMediaConnection: How has your job changed this year?
Lee: There is so much more to consider before deciding on which online marketing opportunity to jump at. The creative placements have gotten richer, and the distribution outlets have become more complex.
iMediaConnection: What surprised you in the online world this year?
Lee: How slowly a big part of the marketing world has come to embrace the Internet as an amazing marketing tool. Online is a growing part of many companies' marketing portfolios, but is still for the most part, a very small part of their overall marketing pie.
iMediaConnection: Have you realigned internal structures and resources to simplify or increase integrated marketing?
Lee: Absolutely.
iMediaConnection: Are you using consultants, software, agencies or other tools to help with search engine http://www.imediaconnection.com/resourceconnection/searchengine.asp marketing?
Lee: Yes. All of the above.
iMediaConnection: What do you believe is the future of ad agencies?
Lee: They are only limited by their creativity. They will have to outsource some operations to third-party companies to keep up with the demands of clients.
iMediaConnection: What are your daily "must-see" Web sites and why?
Lee: Sportsguy.net -- musings from my favorite sports writer, Bill Simmons. Winex.com - best site to order wine online. And superbad.com -- because I still can't figure out what this site is about...
iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?
Lee: Books. The offline kind. I'm mostly reading food writing these days. I'm reading a book called "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky, and a book called "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten.