Mindshare’s Content Guru on What It's Like to Be a Creative in a Media Agency

Greg Manago: When I started at Mindshare in the beginning [2005], it was all under this rubric of branded entertainment. [Mindshare's chief content officer and I] always hated that—what is it? What's happened over the past 10 years is as content has become so important in media plans and the marketing mix our group evolved. We always look at ourselves as a content and production group inside a media agency. Having never worked in an ad agency we didn't understand how they traditionally worked—with a copywriter and art director going off and coming back with the idea. In the TV world it's more collaborative. We staffed our group with people who had different backgrounds: technologists, digital natives, strategists, people from social and of course people who are traditional TV producers.