Michael Sheldon has two job titles that start with the word “president.”
He serves as the first president of ThinkLA, a new trade group for the marketing industry formed in July 2006. Three organizations came together to create ThinkLA: the Los Angeles Advertising Agency Association, the L.A. Ad Club, and the Magazine Representatives Association. ThinkLA currently has about 6,000 members. The non-profit organization seeks to promote Los Angeles as a world center of creative thinking in marketing and media. In his day job, Sheldon serves as president of Deutsch LA, the third largest advertising agency on the West Coast. From its offices in Marina del Rey, the agency serves major clients such as General Motors Corp., DirecTV Group Inc., Helio Inc., and UnitedHealth Group Inc. Previously, Sheldon worked at Chiat/Day as a partner, handling advertising accounts with Nissan Motor Co. and Home Savings. He also worked at Young & Rubicam’s L.A. office and at Fattal & Collins, where he ran accounts for Sega Corp., Kawasaki and K-Swiss Inc. Deutsch Inc. has only two offices the New York headquarters and the L.A. office. Chairman Donny Deutsch, founder of the $2.8 billion agency, also hosts the CNBC talk show “The Big Idea.”
Question: How did the ThinkLA organization come to exist?
Answer: I figure it was inevitable. You had the Los Angeles Advertising Agency Association, which was about the agency business; then you had the Ad Club, which was more about media and clients; and then you had the Magazine Representatives Association to serve that constituency. As this industry progressed, we realized we’re all in this together. After discussions with the heads of those organizations, it was decided to put the groups together.
Q: Was it difficult to herd these groups in the same direction?
A:
About 95 percent of the conversations were about how good the idea was. Everybody liked the idea of collaboration. That’s what makes L.A. special. In other markets, the structure is more disjointed, with more infighting or territories among the groups. In Los Angeles, for whatever reason, you have collaborative people.
Q: Does ThinkLA address some new issue in the advertising industry?
A:
The advertising business has changed in a really positive way. We are now collaborating with search engines and movie studios, for example. As we started to develop the mission for ThinkLA, we broadened it and these people came in droves. We brought Google, Yahoo as well as William Morris people onto the board.
Q. Why did you become president?
A.
I’m not a joiner. I was reluctant to take on this role. But when you think about it, there’s no other market that has all these ground here: advertising, media, entertainment, technology all in the same city. Los Angeles needs to put its stake in the ground and say, “This is all happening here.” That’s the message of ThinkLA.
Q. What does ThinkLA hope to do for its members?
A.
Ultimately, it’s about raising the profile of Los Angeles in the marketing community and bringing more business to this city. And we think we have a great story to tell.
Q: How has the ad agency business changed?
A:
It used to be you had an ad agency that made great TV commercials and print ads and outdoor boards. Then about 10 years ago we decided to have direct marketing, promotion, design of collateral and PR, all under one roof. That was the next wave.
Q: Integration?
A:
Exactly, what we called integration. We wanted it all under one roof, not just different companies attached to us. Now this current wave says integration is fine, but optimization is the real business. We are here to mine our clients’ data to understand where best to put their money. But the only way to maximize their investments is having what we call integrated people, not integrated departments. It’s one thing to say, “That person is interactive, that person is direct, and that person is advertising.” But when you start to say, “All these people need to understand all these disciplines,” then you can optimize the client’s marketing spend.
Q: OK, the ad agency business has changed. How about the media?
A:
A huge blurring of the lines between traditional and non-traditional media. We don’t even talk in those terms anymore because the non-traditional media has become traditional. We’re in the business of making stuff for the Internet every day.
Q: Specifically, what do you see for the future of television?
A:
For a long time, TV was the king of all media. They could raise their rates every year regardless of whether the audience was increasing. In fact, it was doing the opposite. Now I see the need for the TV business to catch up with the needs of marketers. We don’t have clients who say TV is No. 1 anymore. The Internet could be No. 1. We have a big grocery store account that doesn’t have any advertising on TV.
Q: So you expect TV rates will reflect the fact that they’re no longer king?
A:
Yes, I would expect that to happen. They’re scrambling, but everyone is scrambling right now. Whether you’re in television or newspapers or radio everybody is trying to figure out this new media world. It’s incredibly exciting.
Q: Let’s talk about your biggest TV spot right now. You booked an ad for the Super Bowl?
A:
When we started working with General Motors in September, they picked one of the spots called “Elevation,” where you see flying cars going through different cities. At the same time we presented another spot called “Robot.” Mike Jackson (GM North America’s vice-president of marketing and advertising) said “That’s a Super Bowl spot.” It was to play in the second quarter of the game on Sunday.
Q: Is there a particular style of advertising that comes out of L.A.?
A:
I really don’t think so. You couldn’t watch TV or go on the Internet and say, “That ad is decidedly Los Angeles.” But there are phenomenal agencies in this market doing spectacular work. If you took the body of work that Los Angeles produces, versus San Francisco or Chicago or New York, and compared them, Los Angeles would be head and shoulders above the rest. That’s why I took the job with ThinkLA. There really is a difference here.
Q: What is it about L.A. that makes the difference?
A:
It’s the access we have to technology and entertainment, star power, and the collaborative nature of the market. That’s all built into our collective DNA here. And I don’t know that’s true in other markets, because they don’t have access.
Q: How do you manage creative types?
A:
I’m very lucky that my partner Eric Hirshberg (chief creative officer) and I have been together 15 years. We have great respect for each other, in my role as a business guy and his role as a creative guy. We blur the lines between those disciplines, and as a result, everyone here behaves the same way. They watch how mom and dad behave, and then act the same. That’s unusual in this business often there’s infighting between creative and account people. Eric and I don’t have that, and it’s been a huge part of our success in Los Angeles.
Q: How did you land this gig with Deutsch?
A:
Donny Deutsch was in Los Angeles looking for someone to head up the office. I met him at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. In four minutes, we knew it was a done deal.
Q: It’s surprising you got along with him so well. You don’t seem like the archetype brash New Yorker.
A:
He’s not either.
Q: He comes off that way on his show.
A:
He’s got a lot of energy, and at one point he was more polarizing than now. But he’s got a very big heart and a very big brain. He was perceived differently in the press than in real life. And his success speaks for itself.
Q: How big was Deutsch LA when you took over?
A:
When we arrived we had six people in an office on the Third Street Promenade, 3,000 square feet above the Baja Bud. It was like six people sharing a table, a pencil, a phone and a cigarette.
Q: What accounts did you handle?
A:
We had the Wolfgang Puck frozen food account. But right out of the gate, we won Baskin Robbins and L.A. Cellular and Mitsubishi and Expedia and California Cheese. We moved into a 20,000-square-foot building. We busted out of that in about six months and started work on this building, which is 90,000 square feet.
Q: How many people work here?
A: Three hundred and growing. We are looking to hire 60 more people.
Q: What’s your strategy for making good hires?
A: When I interview people for a job, I look for people who are better than me at a couple of skills. Why do I need more me? Also, in nurturing people, I’m not a yeller or a screamer. And I pay people well.
Q: What is your daily work routine?
A: I work seven days a week, but I don’t work full time any day. Because of e-mail and voice mail and the nature of business today, your work is completely integrated into your life. That means you better love your job. Sometimes I get in to the office at 8 a.m., sometimes at 10:30. When I’m not in until 10:30, maybe I had a conference call at 7, dealt with e-mails until 9:30, then worked out and got in the shower. So everybody won. I got to stay home and see the kids off to school. I got the conference call done and a workout in, and I don’t feel like I’m in a rut, coming in every day at 8 a.m. That tends to carry over into the weekend, but not as much.
Q: Doesn’t it get exhausting?
A: I look at e-mails as business opportunities, so I’m just as addicted as everybody else. It brings excitement to life. People talk about Blackberry as Crackberry. For me, I love it. Give me more action.
Q: Final thoughts?
A: We’re at the most exciting possible time in this business. With this confluence of media options and the blending of entertainment and online advertising, we’re at a special place where we are setting the foundations for a new era in marketing. To walk into a building every day where you live and breathe and bump your nose against that, it’s exciting. That’s again why L.A. is so important.
Mike Sheldon
Job Title:
President
Organizations:
ThinkLA and Deutsch LA
Birth:
Royal Oaks, Mich.; 1959
Education:
B.S., Michigan State
Career Turning Points:
Meeting Chief Creative Officer Eric Hirshberg and Chairman Donny Deutsch
Most Influential People:
Donny Deutsch, “the most dynamic, smart, creative, interesting human being I’ve ever met.”
Hobbies: Motocross, aviation, electric guitar, boating. “Anything that requires a helmet and burns fossil fuels, I enjoy.”
Personal: Wife Gina worked for 18 years at MTV; two children, no pets
