Legends of Media Research

An interview with Steve Schlesinger, Executive Chairman of Sago. In this interview, we walk through Steve's career building his research empire - initially as Schlesinger Group (a business his mom started back in their home in 1966) which grew to a truly global enterprise. We explore the story of how the company grew, how it weathered adversity, and what all this means for the future of media and marketing research. It's an interview you won't want to miss.

Join us as we explore the career of Howard Shimmel across his years at Nielsen, MTV Networks, Simmons Research, AOL/Time Warner, Nielsen (again) and Turner Broadcasting. Howard shares stories about how he tackled subscription pricing research for AOL/Time Warner, children's research at Nickelodeon and new ad format research for Turner. It's an episode packed with life lessons.

Come and listen as Dr. Horst Stipp shares adventures from his 40 years at NBC and over the past 11 years at the ARF. The episode includes great stories from the pilot testing for Seinfield, numerous social effects studies (including on television violence and copycat suicide risks), Olympics research, NeuroStandards and, of course, the ARF's current 'attention validation' initiative. There's an adventure at every turn! It's another episode you won't want to miss.

Barry is perhaps the best story-teller in our industry. His presentations weave a narrative that take you on an emotional journey as you discover insights along the way. Come discover the secrets of Barry's craft - and discovery key strategies for delivering bad news. It's an episode packed with insights that will help elevate your own presentation skills - so it's an episode you won't want to miss.

Unique among our Legends, Andrea's career has crossed back and forth between leading sales teams and research teams across a career that has seen her leadership across ESPN, Vevo, Comcast Spotlight (now Effectv) and now Warner Bros Discovery. Andrea shares many of the secrets she has discovered in her truly adventurous career.

A fascinating interview with Paul Donato who led research at Nielsen for over 17 years and, before that, was one of the co-founders of Kantar Media. Currently, Paul serves as Chief Research Officer at the Advertising Research Foundation. Come discover all about media currencies and why the evolution of common currencies is so challenging... and the strengths and limitations of big data (ACR vs. Set Top Box) vs panel data.

Scott was the magazine industry's leading researcher, having led research at both Time Warner and Condé Naste. In this episode he shares stories from the golden age of magazines - with important lessons for the future (particularly around the importance of 'context' which magazines did best). He also discusses the ARF and its future direction. Another episode you won't want to miss!

Few leaders in our industry have the breadth of Bryon Schafer who has led research at organizations across the TV value chain: in advertising, broadcasting, distribution, platforms and even investment. Bryon shares fascinating insights about new ad models, the future and the new TV landscape.

To launch our second season, MediaScience SVP Phillip Lomax interviews Legends of Media Research series host, Dr. Duane Varan to introduce the audience to their host. The episode explores research revealing insights for neuromarketing, innovation, program context effects, attention, leadership and so much more. A special episode that will help you better contextualize Dr. Varan's interviews with Legends while also sharing exciting and inspiring insights.

This episode should be mandatory listening for every CMO, aspiring CMO or for all who interact with CMO's. Learn from Bruce's remarkable tenure of over a decade in the CMO role at Mars and discover how he came to apply scientific approaches to the marketing functions - and how these became part of everyday culture at Mars. The approach took Mars from seeing about 40% of its ads working effectively (measured through best-in-class single source data) to well over 70% being effective following the new approaches - delivering benefits on many fronts. An episode you won't want to miss!

Interview with former President of NBC Research, Alan Wurtzel. Alan discusses his years at both ABC and NBC including his landmark Olympics research, TAMI cross-platform measurement initiative, NBC lab, and broadcast standards and practices. Alan is another member of the billion dollar club, researchers who added at least a billion dollars in value to their company. Listeners will also be fascinated to hear how he came to lead long-form news and how he was once considered the successor to Bog Iger. An interview you won't want to miss... with a true media research legend!