Interpublic media ceo runs to spot runner

The latest score for the feisty, two-year-old company is former Interpublic Media president and CEO Mark Rosenthal, who was hired to preside over a new Media Platforms division at Spot smuggler. Rosenthal's sketch also includes nearly a decennary as president and chief operating officer of MTV Networks.

Spot smuggler, which offering digital services as well as TV and Web production and arrangement services for small to mid-sized businesses, said the new division will purchase its engineering to create programs custom-tailored to fit "the needs of ad agencies and media companies." Rosenthal said he couldn't be much more particular but suggested there will be some big announcements in the near hereafter.

"We're development new merchandise and new platforms that I think will be valuable products for media owners and ad agencies," said Rosenthal. "We've just begun to develop a figure of them. Suffice to say that we think they will help to re-invent some of the traditional features of purchasing and merchandising and planning advertising."

Rosenthal, a New York occupant who will remain living and workings in the city, said the new division "will take vantage of engineering that Spot smuggler has already built and engineering we will continue to build." He said the engineering will "help define and re-define the human relationship between buyers and marketer of ad."

About a month ago, Spot smuggler scored another big-time executive director when it hired the chief media military officer of MSN's Media web, Joanne William Bradford. Bradford left Microsoft to become EVP of subject marketing services for Spot smuggler.

The Los Angeles-based company, headed by CEO and president Nick Grouf, has also late been involved in a number of acquisitions, including that of Weblistic and GlobeShooter.

Rosenthal oversaw all of Interpublic Group's worldwide media operations, including Universal McCann, Initiative, MAGNA Global and other specialist media agencies. He said he decided to join Spot Runner because he liked the people and energy he witnessed.

"I got to know Spot Runner pretty much about year and half ago when I was at Interpublic, right before Interpublic invested some money into Spot Runner," he said. "I was then, and continue to be, really really impressed with not only the business model at Spot Runner but with all the people I was fortunate enough to meet and work with... An exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable group of folks."

He said the atmosphere at Spot Runner reminds him of life two decades ago. "In a funny kind of way, there is the same energy and mission I experienced a long time ago during the early years of MTV and it was something I thought would be real fun to be a part of," said Rosenthal.

He plans to expand the "historically small" New York office that now has about a dozen employees. "We will be hiring in the New York office," he said. "New York is important. It really is the center of the media world as well as the advertising world."