Jack Klues, chairman of Starcom MediaVest Group, describes his life as "a Dick Van Dyke or Andy of Mayberry lifestyle." He is dedicated to his work and his family, and if he wants for anything it would be to lower his golf handicap from its current 21. His Mom and Dad are still healthy and in their 80s, and he and his wife of 25 years, Beth, had their first date in high school in Quincy, Illinois (although they didn't begin dating regularly until after college). Two of his three children have followed close to their father's footsteps in media and marketing, and his youngest is preparing at the University of Illinois (where Jack also attended) to be a schoolteacher. It would appear to be a quiet and peaceful life, except that Jack is one of the most successful, powerful and heavily traveled executives in the media industry. On the rise within the Publicis global empire, Jack keeps his focus on his family's happiness and his company's success even as his virtually non-stop travel requirements keep him constantly on the go from his home near Chicago to one of SMG's 110 offices in 67 countries, including his favorite city, Hong Kong.
Jack and I met for lunch at Michael's during his one-day layover in New York between his pan-European tour and meetings at Publicis' Paris headquarters. Although his mind was centered on an upcoming major new business presentation, plans for several business meetings at next week's Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, and a social weekend with several clients and their spouses in Wisconsin, Jack found time to reminisce about his 28-years at Leo Burnett, its offspring, Starcom and the consolidated Starcom MediaVest Group.
At Michael's, I introduced reality show guru Mark Burnett to Jack, and Mark chatted about his recent difficulties with Fox-TV, including his dissatisfaction with editorial requirements being imposed by Fox on the content of Burnett's latest series, "Casino." We shared observations about the ongoing network upfront market, and both Jack and Mark agreed some of the most innovative thinking about media and advertising is coming from outside the U.S. market. Burnett urged Jack to check out the "Survivor" website, where special broadband content extends the franchise beyond the television show. "Broadband elements will become as big as television elements," Jack commented, "especially for events with 24/7 content, such as the Olympics, World Cup and NCAA. In broadband," he added, "we are just scratching the surface of the opportunities to engage with consumers where they don't mind the advertising messages and can't zap them. We made a pledge to move into the broadband space, and we have."
"Innovation and strategy is where the new game will be won," Jack comments. "Europe has been data rich while the U.S. has been data poor in providing contextual insights for innovation." SMG has hired twelve contextual planners globally, Jack reports, to serve as brand advocates and to focus on analyses of new tools and data the company has been underwriting. He describes a success story for a feminine hygiene client based on a shift of media strategy determined from insights learned from special research among teen girls. Brand preference and purchase decisions in the category, SMG learned, are based heavily on word of mouth and trusted advice from friends. They also learned that certain magazines are surrogates for friendships among teens. Based on the data, SMG planners shifted budgets from television to these key publications and made appropriate creative recommendations.
"Contextual planners are not re-branded researchers," Jack emphasizes. "They allow media to be more creative by aligning us with and creating a bridge to content makers. The goal is to go beyond cost-per-thousand to a higher collective value equation." Jack says he can see a time when "there are real valuation measures that move media beyond commodities and move media buying beyond CPM measures. Ideas should lead," he says. "They can come from a number of sources and the power is when media and creative work collaboratively."
While some media executives are arguing for the re-integration of creative and media, Jack believes there has ironically been more integration of the two competencies since media was unbundled from creative, since they are independently accountable and "the business model allows us to be more responsive to clients and enables us to make investments where we want. We have the freedom to push our priorities; we can raise our clients' expectations and the creative agencies' expectations that we'll make a bigger contribution. Physical separation is not a barrier to collaboration," Jack adds.
"I love the experience of our guys creating and building on an idea," Jack comments. "I have a great respect for ideas, and the greatest thrill is the competition of the pitch and seeing how new business pitches are becoming about ideas and not about the guys with green eye shades." Jack was hired in client services at Burnett by the legendary Willard Hadlock, but he "had read David Ogilvy's book and I wanted to be a specialist, so I moved into media." Under the tutelage of Hadlock and Dick Hobbes, Jack received "a tremendous grounding in the value of integrity, hard work and deal making. They both did an incredible amount for the company, and Dick is under recognized for seeing the importance of global media as part of the future." Jack is an appropriate standard bearer of the Burnett and SMG brand of integrity, hard work and deal making. If his life were a sitcom, it would be a traditional, black and white, all-American story of the good ol' country boy who made good and became one of America's leading good-will ambassadors to the global advertising and media community.
