When Renetta McCann, chief executive of Starcom North America, accepts the 2002 Advertising Woman of the Year award Wednesday, she will likely touch, but not dwell, on things that are still touchy subjects in the ad business: race and gender.
That she is an African-American and a woman heading up a media-buying behemoth in an industry with a woeful diversity track record is a major accomplishment, for sure.
“People would be surprised in the ways [race and gender] has intersected my career,” said McCann, who will be in the spotlight at the Women’s Advertising Club of Chicago luncheon Wednesday at the Drake Hotel.
McCann recalls that 18 years into her career, when she had just become a senior vice president of Leo Burnett, a publisher of a prominent magazine came in for a chat. In the middle of the conversation, McCann says, the publisher stopped and, with surprise in her voice, blurted: “You know, you are so articulate.”
Though McCann had faced other, more subtle stereotypes and hurdles, she recalled that moment from several years ago like it had happened yesterday.
“You can only dwell so long on that issue,” says McCann, a product of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood who has spent all of her 24 years in the ad business at Leo Burnett and Starcom.
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After climbing through the ranks on both the planning and buying sides, McCann now finds herself as one of the most sought-after female media executives in the country. A lunch with McCann, whose agency controls close to $6 billion in media dollars, could make a media representative’s year with his or her boss.
Not that she has time these days.
But she can’t see herself doing anything different.
“I like puzzles,” she says about why she wanted to stay in media years ago when it was considered the step-child to advertising. “I like solving problems. Rocks in hard places don’t bother me the way they do other people.”
She has been helped, no doubt, by a simple philosophy when it comes to working with her staff. “Come in and play hard and if you do, it’s good all day long,” she said. “I don’t require anyone to tend to my mood. And they don’t have to stroke my ego.”
The fact that McCann, who originally went to college to be a lawyer, is being honored as a Chicago Ad Woman of the Year is also a recognition of how far media has come in this business. She is only the third media executive to win the honor. The others were Starcom research chief Jayne Spittler in 1995 and Shari Wall, a media consultant and formerly senior vice president, media director at J. Walter Thompson, Chicago, in 1991. (This paragraph as published has been corrected in this text.)
But it’s little wonder. Though the Burnett brass resisted unbundling the media portion of its business at first, the move to set up Starcom under CEO Jack Klues has proved to be one of Burnett’s smartest.
With media consolidating on both the buying and selling sides, Starcom has been forced to adapt. One of McCann’s greatest achievements came late last year with the firm’s $700 million Disney media consolidation. Having spent much of her career working with the Disney client, the win after a grueling pitch process was especially special to McCann. “I felt a huge personal investment in it,” she said.
Now her challenge is to navigate the agency through one of the most difficult ad periods in recent memory.
“No one has discovered the next `killer category,”‘ she says. “Right now, the economics of the business demand that you keep your clients happy.”
2 brands in review: Morris the Cat is going to get a new advertising agency. Heinz Pet Products is sending out requests for proposals for the company’s 9-Lives and Kibbles ‘n Bits brands.
Several Midwestern agencies are believed to have been contacted. New York-based Roth Associates is handling the search. Though Heinz hasn’t spent much behind the brands in recent years, the brands, which have a long history with Chicago ad shops, could be getting renewed interest from the Pittsburgh-based company.
On the move: Paisley Pingree, media supervisor at DDB Chicago, takes on a high-level media post at Oak Brook-based McDonald’s Corp. The company has had a top U.S. media post vacant for more than a year after the retirement of Mary Kay Eschbach. … Erin Conlin returns to Chicago to become a group planning director on the Sears, Roebuck and Co. business at media buying firm Mindshare beginning June 24. She spent the last year at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, on the Nissan business. … TV Guide Media Sales Inc. named Michael Claffey director, Midwest media sales. He had been Midwest vice president at the Excite Network.