The constant throughout these seasoned execs’ careers? An approach that’s client-focused and guided by the maxim that doing right by others will always pay off. Olsen and his team created inventive campaigns for clients like GSK—which centered around a short commercial with Lifetime to raise awareness about meningitis B. Zagin makes balancing distributors’ needs with customer experience look easy, with his team launching enhanced VOD for its MVPD partners this year. MacDonald, meanwhile, closed licensing agreements and prioritized deals for international versions of popular A+E content like the survival series “Alone.”
Do you personally still have a traditional cable video package? Yes. And everyone should. Best value in town!
Business speak phrase or buzzword I find most annoying: All of them. We need to stop trying to sound smart and be smart. Let’s honestly try and solve industry and specific client issues.
What emerging industry trend are you most excited by and why? Common currency and ROI metrics to let true VALUE be scored. Things are too subjective and incomplete these days. Too much of the industry is chasing the new and not properly evaluating VALUE.
The last thing A.I. got wrong was… Almost everything. AI has zero value in imagining the future. It can crunch past and present information in real time based on constants, it can’t properly handle variables. The human mind is the greatest asset we all have and people are trying, in the spirit of cost cutting and efficiency, to devalue and replace it. There will be much more harm than good.
