Mark Stewart - Universal McCann

Brandweek, Dec 6, 1999 by Eric Schmuckler

If the Media Director of the Year was chosen on the basis of quotes in the trade press, Universal McCann's Mark Stewart wouldn't even be on the ballot. Not that he's some kind of cerebral hermit; far from it. It's just that this ingratiating, 40-year-old Aussie is so focused on his people and his clients that he is, typically, unaware of his low profile in the media business public arena.

"It's not about getting your picture in Adweek or a good table at the Four Seasons," he says, somewhat surprised at the question. I don't need to be wined and dined by publishers. My job is to make my team a team."

Stewart's team is surely running on all cylinders now. Over the last two years, Universal McCann (as the agency's newly branded media practice is now known) has racked up about $1.7 billion in new U.S. media billings, about half of that in media-only business, from clients including General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Gateway, Sprint and Microsoft. "It's been a helluva ride with Mark," says Harlan Schwarz, co-director, media planning/NY. "I can't tell you how exciting it has been in the four-and-a-half years since he came, and I've been here 20 years. He's brought an energy to the department, and a higher profile to media services within the agency with this Australian, in-your-face charm that seems to woo other departments."

Ira Carlin, chairman of Universal McCann, describes Stewart's success this way: "This guy is smart, to be sure, but so are a lot of media directors. What impresses me is he's got this incredible imagination. It's lateral thinking, off-the-wall stuff that cuts through the day-to-day distractions. You can get smart people and you can get imaginative people, but it's rare to get both in one person."

Though Stewart denies any knowledge of what "lateral thinking" is, he chalks up his fresh perspective on media to his early career in the land of Oz. "I think I got a fantastic grounding because the business is a lot smaller in Australia--a large agency there was 200 people--and you tend to be a generalist. You learn to plan and to buy, and most agencies don't have full-time research, so you get this understanding of the intersection between planning, buying and research."

Initially forced to be generalist, Stewart now considers that his job description. "I make sure we get people talking to one another, understanding what the interconnections are," he says. "My role is to continually keep the dialogue open, and to impart a sense of community. I hope that if someone is asked at a cocktail party what they do, they say, 'I'm in advertising,' not 'I'm in media at McCann.'

"The really central things are insights and ideas," he continues, warming to his theme. "Looking beyond the numbers to what the information represents. In media, we have all these props--runs, ratings, syndicated data. We all know how to use these same basic tools, but then we'll end up with the same answers. We need to ask the questions that aren't being asked. It's not about the media, it's about understanding the consumer: how they think and act and why, how they interact with the client's product. Then, and only then, can you begin to think about harnessing media."

McCann is spending millions on a large-scale proprietary research project called Media in Mind. "It tracks people and their product and media usage, their moods and mindsets and attention levels throughout the day," he explains. "Media really is a mix of the qualitative and quantitative. We've always had a lot of info on the quantitative side; this helps fill in the holes on the qualitative value of media."

As the flood of media content continues to climb, Stewart believes, "context will be king. That's the next area of exploration, the place we'll hit paydirt. Are our prospects receptive? What is the environment and how do you leverage that to add content to the message? It's a matter of getting the message right and the placement right so the customer ultimately takes action.

"And in a world where everything communicates," he adds, "we must understand the full portfolio of options and orchestrate them on behalf of our clients. Not just network TV, but newspapers and local news channels and sales force support and FSIs and the event. Keeping those disciplines in separate buckets is getting harder and harder. It's not about TV vs. radio vs. print--maybe it's about sports vs. entertainment vs. pop stars. What role does sport play in consumers' lives and how do they access it? Playing, watching, gathering stats? Look at ESPN magazine; it's about lifestyle and sports being an aperture into their lives."

Stewart has taken all this studying and strategizing and built it into a process at McCann that pushes the media function upstream and integrates it into strategic planning. "As account planning is talking to consumers about the product, we're talking to consumers about their interaction with media," he explains. "As strategic planning is drawing up a conceptual target--soccer moms--we draw that into media planning and feed it over to creative."