Well Karen, it's funny you said 2018 because I kind of feel like we're back in 1859.
1859?
1859.
What was in 1859?
Well there was an interesting thing that happened in 1859.
Charles Dickens wrote his famous 'Tale of Two Cities,' the opening lines of which
you might remember were the best of times and the worst of times.
I think that defines our industry today.
For some it's the best of times. For some it's the worst of times.
I’m Karen Tso, and this is my new ride for the week.
I’m taking it for a spin along the Croisette for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity,
and bringing along some of the biggest names in advertising, business and entertainment.
As we ask…
Today, I’m taking a trip down memory lane with MediaLink CEO and founder Michael Kassan.
With Kassan at its helm, the consultancy firm has built a name for itself by making high-level connections,
whether that be at their star-studded, VIP parties or behind closed doors.
I'm an aficionado of Hamilton.
I've seen the musical seven times.
My favorite song from that show is Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison lamenting about no one else was in the room where it happened.
I fancy that MediaLink has afforded me and our team the opportunity to be in the room
where it happens in our industry and to be part of the decision making,
as an adviser of course but to be part of the decision making.
So how did Kassan and his company end up advisors to high-profile decision makers?
Let’s put this car in reverse, right back to the 1950s.
Michael Kassan was born in New York, Brooklyn specifically.
But it wasn’t too long before his family moved out west.
As I like to say my parents loaded up the covered wagons and moved across the country
to California which then was a lot of orange groves.
So it was an interesting time to go west young man, as we would say.
I had a pretty standard childhood.
I grew up in Southern California, did all the Southern California things, traded in
my horseback riding for my surfboard and my surfboard for my skis.
Kassan attended UCLA for his undergraduate and law degrees.
But it was Kassan’s third stint in higher education that brought him back to the east coast.
That's where I focused my career as I started as a tax lawyer in the entertainment industry.
That was quite big in the day, wasn't it? To be a tax lawyer?
It was and interestingly enough, riding through Cannes which is a festival founded on creativity
and core to its principles.
I would submit to you that in tax planning back in the day, you could be creative.
The laws allowed for a fair amount of creativity.
If I'm honest though Karen, I never envisaged that I would practice law for my whole career.
It looked to me more like a means to an end.
I wasn't sure what the end was but I knew that I really wanted to be the client more than be the lawyer.
Kassan’s evolution from tax lawyer to media executive began with one of his clients,
International Video Entertainment.
We had characters on video like G.I. Joe and Transformers and Strawberry Shortcake
and Inspector Gadget and the early days of home video were around identifying those titles,
those big movies but also around children's titles.
And it was another client of Kassan’s that finally pulled him into the media industry.
Western International Media was the biggest buyer of television spot advertising in the nation
at the time, and its founder Dennis Holt wanted Kassan on board.
He turned to me in the early 90s and said, "I need some help."
And I said, "Well, I'm not looking for a job," and he said, "I'm not offering you a job, I'm offering you a life."
And I said, "Well that's interesting, and what life would that be?"
He said, "That life would be to help me run this company."
I said, "Well I don't know much about the media business."
Quite daunting for Kassan at the time, but he learnt on the job.
A client would come to us and say I have money to invest in my marketing spend
and in those days the choices were simple.
It was television, it was radio, it was out-of-home billboards and it was magazines and newspapers.
There wasn't much else. We didn't have the internet.
The business became much more complicated as we go.
But that's how I made my start in the business, joining that company in the early 90s.
Kassan stayed on with the company after its sale to advertising holding company Interpublic in 1994.
When I left that company in 2000 we were at about $11 billion of media placement
which at that time made us the largest in the world.
So I got my start at a pretty good place in the media ecosystem and was proud to build
that company to heights that had not been realized before in media planning and media buying.
Another point of pride?
Opening up Cannes Lions to media.
My first trip to Cannes Lions was by accident.
The Cannes Lions was strictly the domain of the creatives.
I happened to be on holiday at the Hotel du Cap and I saw several of the lead creative
people in the industry and I said, "Gee this is funny. Why are you all here?"
They said, "Well it's the Cannes Lions down the beach a bit and you know at the Croisette."
And I said, "Oh Cannes Lions. I've heard about that."
Because on the media side, we were never part of this festival,
and as a result of that I took a ride in from Antibes and looked around and said,
"Geez, the media people should be here."
Creativity is at the core but media is what drives the business in terms of getting the message out.
Kassan and Interpublic parted ways in 1999.
But instead of diving headfirst back into the industry, Kassan decided to take some time off.
When I left Interpublic at the turn of the century, I love to say that, makes me feel so old.
At the turn of the century, I took about 18 months off and I took that time off
to really understand where the digital world was taking us, and taking us I mean those
of us at the sort of intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment and technology
because if I was fortunate to do one thing, I identified that intersection as being rather
chaotic and if it was an opportunity that grew out of the chaos, I wanted to make sure
I understood all the different elements of it.
Kassan surrounded himself with the smartest people he knew in the business,
but it was his wife that inspired his next big adventure.
I turned to the person who gave me sage advice for the last 43 years and that was my wife,
and she said, "You know all these people are calling you asking you questions and asking
for your advice and your strategy help. You could actually charge them for this."
And I said, "Well maybe."
And that’s how the idea of MediaLink was born.
Sitting at the intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment and tech,
the consultancy advises clients on business transformation, organizational design, acquisitions,
executive searches and media reviews for some of the biggest ad spenders in the world.
For example, Disney and Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company, have been making headlines
with a bidding war over FOX’s assets.
MediaLink works with all three.
I'm going to bet it's going to be a fight to the finish and an interesting one.
Who's going to win?
Oh gosh, you know.
Roberts or Iger?
I don't know. This was a tough call.
You've got two of the best businessmen in the world in Brian Roberts and Bob Iger,
certainly in the world of media.
And I think they both want it very much.
Michael, you’re sitting on the fence here. Which side?
I'd put my money today on the Walt Disney Company as having an advantage,
in that they've been there and kicking these tires for about six months since December.
So I think that gives them an advantage.
I feel like it's Sophie's Choice for me to make a real call there, but if I had to make that bet
I think that's the bet I'd make today.
The man known for advising on big deals recently got involved with one of his own,
selling MediaLink to Ascential, a business-to-business media and events company
most famous for organizing Cannes Lions.
Amongst my friends and those in the industry, the joke was everyone used to say that MediaLink
owned the Cannes Lions and then a year and a half ago, the Cannes Lions actually ended up owning MediaLink.
Now MediaLink is focused on expansion.
It's opened offices in London and Frankfurt over the past year and is expanding into Asia next.
I've never been great at math. I tell people I spent 50% of my time in Los Angeles.
50% of my time in New York and a third of my time elsewhere so
that does add up to be more than 100% I know.