Walk softly and carry a big checkbook

Article [Walk softly and carry a big checkbook] from [Furtune Magazine]

Forget Google. The real king of advertising is a mild-mannered 58-year-old media buyer.

By Jessi Hempel, writer
February 4 2008: 4:47 PM EST

(Fortune Magazine) -- It wasn't long ago that the ad biz was ruled by black-clad creative types who could charm an old lady into dropping her last $10 on a jar of get-younger cream. But those days are over. Now, with digital media at the center of the action - Google, Facebook, Microsoft's blockbuster bid for Yahoo - it's all about numbers. And one bookish media buyer is king. His name is Irwin Gotlieb. But we might just as well call him the $59 billion man.

Last year the CEO of media-buying shop GroupM, a division of the ad conglomerate WPP Group (WPPGY), quietly directed more than 16% of the world's $364 billion in global ad expenditures. He not only understands media better than most; he has the power to sway the industry to his vision. And lately that vision entails old media taking lessons from the web. "Say you want to sell grapefruit," he says over an egg-white omelet at London's Four Seasons, where he keeps an extra set of clothes for regular visits. To move a lot of citrus in the traditional way, he explains, you'd buy a spot on "Grey's Anatomy" or run an ad in Vogue, making behavioral assumptions and inferences built on viewer demographics. But in the digital world, ad buyers don't need to assume anything; they have data to work with. Online marketers track actual behavior, so instead of buying a type of audience, they can buy a click, an inquiry, or even a sale. Every time consumers take such an action, it becomes part of their "clickstream," which follows them around the web. This information trail gives marketers an increasingly sophisticated idea about each of us, allowing them to craft an ever more tailored online experience.

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