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Profile: Fred Dubin

May 6, 2002  •  Post A Comment

Title: Executive VP and director, national broadcast, Mediaedge:cia.
Recent interesting deal: “For Sony, 9/11 changed a feel-good corporate holiday commercial into a public service campaign to instill the spirit of unity in America. The joint campaign with Circuit City was `Message From America,’ a call to all U.S. citizens to send a message of hope, cheer, good will and love to our military troops.
“The role of Mediaedge:cia was to develop a media support program. We took a 60-second commercial buy and created a program that included an overlay of public service announcements, vignettes, promos and in-show editorial and crossed four different Viacom broadcast entities-CBS, UPN, MTV and “Entertainment Tonight.” And this was done with donated time and energy of major broadcast personalities.
“What made this buy unique was that Mediaedge:cia essentially changed the buyer-seller paradigm. Negotiations were unique in that we were asking the seller to co-sponsor the effort in a manner that would dramatically increase the exposure afforded by the media budget. Our agenda became their agenda.”
The next big thing: “We have been doing cross-platform deals with media vendors for years, but more and more we will look to leverage our clients’ assets and develop strategic opportunities cross platform to support our clients’ business. Certainly, conglomerate deals will become a bigger part of what we do.”
Is there anything you wish you had bought less of? “I would have to say, on a personal level, that I was always uncomfortable marketing to kids 2 to 5.”
Is there anything you wish you had bought more of? “Other than our company stock? There are shows that we thought would take off, and did, where we could have invested more. And there are probably just as many where we could have taken a flyer and didn’t.
If you weren’t in media buying: “I’m typing with my hand in a cast, so it certainly wouldn’t be a downhill racer. I would like to try and write a kids book, but I am not sure I could make it a career and support a family.