Leading Global Strategist to Oversee JWT's Knowledge Management and Worldwide Communications Functions
Content Will Drive Insights, Thought Leadership, and Reputation
NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Bob Jeffrey, Worldwide CEO and Chairman of JWT, the largest advertising agency in the U.S. and fourth largest in the world, announced today that Marian Salzman has been named Executive Vice President, Director of Strategic Content, and a member of the agency's Worldwide Executive Committee.
In the newly created post, Salzman will hold responsibility over global knowledge management, including corporate intelligence, and corporate communications at JWT. The dual role calls for Salzman to oversee all of JWT's public relations resources to ensure cohesive and strategic internal and external communications about the agency on global, regional, and local levels, and to spearhead the development and dissemination of consumer insights, trend reports, and other thought leadership pieces that speak to all of JWT's stakeholders, including media. Salzman will bring the knowledge- management and corporate-communications functions closer together by producing proprietary reports that will drive proactive press outreach, in essence, creating content by, for, and about the media.
"Marian is a visionary with the experience and skill set to move companies in new directions, allowing them to capitalize on opportunities ahead of others," said Jeffrey, to whom Salzman will report. "She joined us on a freelance basis at the beginning of this year, and has gained enormous traction within our worldwide organization. We look forward to tapping into her foresight to identify and leverage consumer insight and trends that are affecting our business and our clients' businesses. I have every confidence that Marian will help raise the JWT brand to new heights globally."
Over the past four months, Salzman has acted as a consultant to JWT. In that capacity, she has led the planning, execution and promotion of the agency's successful re-launch on February 28th, market-by-market studies that explore time as the new currency, and a number of other research and consumer-insight initiatives.
"I decided to join JWT for the new creative spirit, its top leadership who share a commitment to good work and global teamwork, and because JWT is the first agency in the world to own 'commercial anthropology,' which is the true art and science of my craft," said Salzman.
Salzman, 45, is one of the world's leading futurists and strategists, who has made name for herself within the marketing communications industry. An author or co-author of 13 books on topics ranging from current affairs to the youth market, including Next, which was a No. 1 bestseller in markets from Australia to The Netherlands, Salzman has identified and/or taken public such concepts as "metrosexuality," "singletons," and "globesity." During Fall 2004, she and co-authors wrote The Future of Men (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press), for release in September 2005; this non-fiction opportunity grew out of the enormous fad she created with metrosexmania.
Most recently, Salzman spent nearly four years at Euro RSCG Worldwide, where she rose from Global Strategy Director to Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer. She launched the agency's S.T.A.R. (Strategic Trendspotting and Research) initiative. Prior to that, from 1997-2000, Salzman headed up the Intelligence Factory, Young & Rubicam's global think tank and trend-forecasting company that she co-founded. From 1994-1997, Salzman worked at TBWA Worldwide, where among other accomplishments, she created and managed the Amsterdam-based futurology and consumer-insights lab with strategic planning oversight for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. She joined TBWA predecessor Chiat\Day in 1992, when Jay Chiat became the lead investor in her then 2-year-old youth marketing consultancy. With Jay Chiat in the early 1990s, she created American Dialogue, the first market research facility in cyberspace that was later renamed Cyberdialogue.
Salzman is an honors graduate of Brown University, studied at Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and has been named to Crain's New York Business "40 Under 40" (1995), New York Magazine's "Cyber 60" (1995), and by VNU's as one of the top five futurists in the world (2004), a list that includes John Naisbitt and Faith Popcorn.
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