David DeSocio, U.S. Director of Strategic Marketing OMD, NEW YORK

David DeSocio is often described as OMD’s Oz-like “man behind the curtain.”That’s because he has been behind the scenes leading the agency’s development of the next wave of marketing communications solutions but integral to bringing the word “creative” into the lexicon of the media specialist. His role as U.S. director of strategic marketing gives him the responsibility for OMD’s general strategic marketing as well as oversight of the agency’s U.S. knowledge center, which includes research, consumer insights, and metrics. (He is also the U.S. leader on most OMD Worldwide initiatives as well as all global new business pitches.) Currently, he is pioneering OMD’s strategy to address new and emerging technologies. As the architect of Checkmate, the name OMD has given to its proprietary global strategic planning process, he champions new thinking and client-centric solutions. For example, he dared to take the position speaking at a U.S. cable television industry event that DVRs are not a threat and may actually benefit the TV advertising experience.This is by enabling the most relevant messages to get to the most appropriate audiences since consumers are controlling the content they see. He believes as media fragment,traditional audience definitions become less and less useful, and communication channels increasingly overlap and blur. He says it is vital to stay ahead of these global media developments and liberate the insights from the vast amount of information available to both agency and client.“Only by doing this can we create media solutions that truly differentiate clients’ brands and drive their business,” he believes.