New Co-Presidents at the helm of Drake Cooper

Drake Cooper recently announced an update to their agency leadership with the appointment of Co-Presidents John Drake and Mindy Stomp.

From the post on their Reverb site:

John Drake will add the title of Co-President to his current role as Chief Strategy Officer, which he assumed in 2019. Since his teenage years, John has been around the agency, with his first role being the somewhat less-prestigious “Runner.” His official career began in Los Angeles at Deutsch, then moving to senior positions with WongDoody and leading his own agency, FourStories, in Portland before joining Drake Cooper fifteen years ago. That journey involved working on brands that included Disney, Carl’s Jr., Tillamook, DIRECTV, Nestlé, Baskin-Robbins, UCLA, and more. John’s role will be to oversee the agency’s work product. His teams will include planning & strategy, creative, media, and analytics.

The other Co-President is a new addition to Drake Cooper. After an extensive search process inside the industry, the agency is excited to welcome Mindy Stomp as Co-President, General Manager. Mindy will oversee the agency’s business operations, client success, and business development teams. She most recently held leadership positions with VMLY&R and brings to Drake Cooper a deep background built at agencies large and small. Her significant digital experience ranges from complex website build projects to leading digital AOR relationships. Her teams have led efforts for clients such as Facebook/Meta, SKYY Vodka, Carnival Cruise Lines, Crystal Cruises, Driscoll’s, Haas Automation, and Mazda.

Jamie Cooper will remain in the CEO role through 2022, and will continue after as chair of Drake Cooper’s ESOP Board of Directors.

Additional coverage at Adweek and Mediapost.

For your reading pleasure

Recently commentary published on MediaPost’s Media Insider:

Future Of Agency Business Is With Small And Mid-Sized Regionals

The Impending War for Talent

It’s a unique challenge facing companies over the next few years. How to find the people coming into the workforce who have some measure of experience, vs. balancing hiring people you’ll have to train on your own? Couple this with the challenge of the “entitled” employee, and you can see how hiring will be even more important going forward.

Read the full article about The Impending War for Talent on MediaPost

Media News with a Local Spin

Something we stumbled across recently over at MediaPost:

Belo Partners With Yahoo To Bundle Inventory

Can’t say for sure what it will ultimately mean to a site like KTVB’s, but maybe our friends over there can weigh in with more information.

Positive News on the Media Front

Two separate articles in the past week have both pointed to some positive news from the media side of this business:

Radio Revenues Rebound in 2Q, Auto Ads Up – via MediaPost

TV ad sales looking solid for second half – via The Hollywood Reporter

Give the articles a read and decide for yourself.  Are they right? Wrong? Are you seeing things out there these days that support these theories?