Lisa Weinstein became MindShare’s youngest Managing Director earlier this year when she accepted the position at the world’s No. 3 communications planning agency. Named to AdAge’s 40-under-40 list of rising executives, the 33-year-old’s path to the top has already run quite the gamut. She shares observations about client management, emerging media and winning characteristics in a recent Q-and-A session with Brand Connections founder and CEO Brian F Martin.
A journalism major at Indiana University, Leo Burnett’s media department recruited Weinstein out of school to work on the Miller portfolio. She then moved to Ogilvy & Mather as a supervisor on the just-merged Amoco/BP account. After briefly straying into event marketing, she returned to the media world to run the Dow business at OMD. It didn’t take MindShare long to poach Weinstein and install her as BP’s global planning director. The Indiana native took a promotion to manage the Chicago MindShare office in her latest career move. A winding path for sure, but Weinstein says the twists and turns reinforced her affinity for the career. “I have to say I wouldn’t do anything differently because I learned a lot from every move that I made, every new client and piece of business that I worked on – even that short time when I left the direct media and communications and planning and investment business.”
Along the way Weinstein has gleaned some ideas about what clients demand from media advisors. “Clients ultimately want people that are passionate about their business, are dedicated to their business; that they can really trust to steward quite frankly a whole lot of money that we’re investing on their behalf,” she says. In a broader business perspective, Weinstein believes clients are looking for advisors who can navigate them through complex times and simplify the path from A to B. The number of communication pathways swirling around is sometimes scary, she admits, but it’s also incredibly exciting because of these expanding possibilities. “The very cool thing is that clients right now are OK to take a little bit of risk and make mistakes,” notes Weinstein. One of the best ways to get a handle on the complex times and pass the digital IQ test is to jump in feet first.
Whether it’s developing an iGoogle page to streamline client information, downloading Trillian to manage instant message platforms, or joining Facebook, Weinstein believes it’s part of the job to be “personally invested” in the burgeoning technology that baffles so many. Mastering emerging media is a necessity, she says, as more clients clamor for technology-laden communications strategies. “I would say across the board all clients are saying ‘let me be your guinea pig,’ which is different than it was a year ago.” Even as more clients ask her to try something new for them, others remain reticent. The Managing Director, however, sees no reason why swooning sectors, such as casual dining and retail, are slow to embrace new approaches.
Utilizing emerging media seems more critical, she says, when coupled with the ideas espoused by Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. The book asserts that consumer choice proliferation and the technological advances that enabled media fragmentation have combined to splinter the market into smaller segments. Still, it’s quite possible to capture market share that equals or surpasses that of blockbuster items, Anderson argues, if items in lesser demand are properly marketed and distributed. This imperative forces marketers to focus on “all the little opportunities and the niche ways of communicating with people that exist at that tail,” since we’re no longer a hit-driven society, notes Weinstein. Fortunately the same technology that elongated the so-called tail also enabled marketers to communicate via tailored messages that align with specific personal behaviors of individual consumers. “I think even mass media the way we think of it today is going to be addressable media,” she posits. A far cry from the blanket Super Bowl ads of yore.
Technology alone can’t take you to the top. A woman who believes people make their own luck, Weinstein sees passion and dedication as touchstones on the path to one’s absolute potential. “I don’t ever see an obstacle, I always see an opportunity,” she says. “I think that people who are really successful are constantly looking for ways to overcome and don’t see anything as a real roadblock, but rather as a way to find a different solution.” Leaders must also learn to become solution and action oriented, she suggests. “You have to be able to constantly come to the table with an action to move something forward or with a solution. Clients don’t want to hear about problems. They don’t want to hear about what we can’t do, they want to hear about what our solution is – our proposed solution and the action we’re going to take.” Wise words from the mind of a media maven in the making.
