Stephen Rust

My, how things change

2011-08-13T23:48:00.000+01:00

It's 15 months almost to the day since my last posting. And how things have changed.

I will return to this blog shortly; it feels as though it might be time. 15 months is a heartbeat and an eternity

So, was i-level just a crap business with a mountain of debt?

2010-05-10T22:31:00.003+01:00

"The staff now suffer the consequences of the leveraged sale - perhaps a phoenix will rise with familiar names lauded as saviours’! Packaged administration is an easy way to wipe debt and move on – challenge will be who will trust these guys again???"

"My feeling is that i-level’s financial situation is less to do with a declining demand for services, and instead is an example of how a business has become jaded over time."

"The structure of the transaction included loading the group with £32 million of debt, much of which carried an interest coupon of 12%. In other words the group had to earn pre-tax profits of at least £3 million to cover interest charges alone."

"It is not that agencies can't provide premium digital services, but that i-level were an extremely badly managed agency."

"How about i-level was just a shit business, that's the type of businesses that go bust - shit ones."

There have been lots of public and private comments about i-level over the last few days. Some of them have been incredibly touching and supportive; others somewhat wounding. In case there's any doubt, those quoted above tilt towards the latter of those two categories.

The title of this blog covers two issues - crap business; loads of debt. As the now ex-CEO, I figure I might as well throw out my penny worth for public consumption.

Was i-level a crap business? Well, as the now ex-CEO I am biased but, no, it was rather a good business with fabulous people. It was not without its challenges, trust me, but it wasn't crap. I was in post for less than a year and worked at i-level for just over two years in total. Prior to joining, I'd always admired i-level and its almost iconic status in agency world. And when I joined I have to admit I was a little taken aback at the scale of the challenges that it faced but, with hindsight, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised.

Having survived the dot bomb, i-level entered boom time during the early years; operating in a market that was growing 'oh so fast' and with competitors left struggling to grasp what was going on. But massive growth in a new market does create challenges, not least in making sure that delivery is not screwed up because there aren't enough experienced people to throw at a client brief. Process is created to prevent screw ups. And a process to manage the process. And then another process to manage the risk that isn't quite nailed by the first or second process. The inevitable consequence is that people get handed tasks to deliver within a defined process with no context and soon loose sight of the bigger picture. And the culture that emerges to support that probably doesn't feel great.

And then there's the fact that 'specialist digital agencies' left competitors scratching their nuts a little. Combine that with massive market growth. And the possible result is that people end up doing what a former boss of mine used to call 'eating their own dog food'. Now, I was never quite sure of the derivation of such an elegant phrase but the reality was true - fabulous success can always lead to a whiff of arrogance.

With all that success and growth, hanging onto its coat tails was difficult enough without even having to think about the 'next big thing'. And the result has been that fabulous success meant innovation hasn't been the priority today that was the absolute foundation of the past. Hot shot new agencies start emerging.

And then, because the market's been growing so fast, competitors start to get their shit together. When those competitors are better financed with international networks and a broader offering, there has to be a point of difference if an independent is going to remain relevant and valuable to clients. Specialist digital agencies, having eaten all that dog food, got indigestion which left them rubbing their tummy. What's the story? How does it fit with the rest of the world? What's the impact on my business? All questions that need addressing in a grown up digital world.

All of the above, to a lesser or greater extent, had an impact on i-level. As the new boy in the agency it was perhaps easier for me to see, largely because the flavour of the dog food just wasn't to my taste. Which is why during the last year i-level has been transforming, and quite radically transforming. We had no choice. I remember saying to the company at some point last summer, 'It used to be good enough just to turn up with an i-level business card to get the work. It's not good enough any more.'

Not a great deal of our transformation has been shouted about because, frankly, what was the point of shouting? But, we'd been busy, really busy having: written the i-level story setting out our vision and built a road map about how we were going to deliver it; stood back and thought about what our over-arching proposition was - what we did, how it was different and how it benefited clients; re-organised the business so it was market facing; delivered new service offerings in the form of Clients Services, Planning & Strategy, Insight, Creative, and Emerging Platforms; refreshed the brand and about to launch a new website reflecting our new proposition; re-focused on client objectives; tried to deliver an integrated service in the context of the wider marketing landscape; brought new people into the business to support the new service lines; delivered an open, communicative and collaborative culture. Those are just the headlines. But, when the axe fell last week it felt oh so cruel because we'd made such great progress in a year. There was energy, passion and commitment. Pretty rare in any agency I reckon.

That's why I don't think we were a crap business, let alone a shit business. We had a big hill to climb, we knew that, but we felt we could do it. And we believed we might just regain some of that iconic status that i-level represented a few years ago. That's my response to some of the more negative comments there have been in the last few days. The reasons we collapsed had nothing to do with the underlying business or team; there were other forces at play. One of my biggest regrets (and there are lots) is that we never got to show that transformation to the world and the relevancy of the new model we had created.

As for the debt mountain.... perhaps tomorrow.

i-level : a story of hell and hope and hell again

2010-05-08T12:30:00.029+01:00

Tuesday 4 May brought in the administrators; Thursday 6 May most people were axed with no notice payments; Friday 7 May was my last day. There is no business left.

How did i-level get destroyed so effectively in the course of just four days? My new found free time will, in part, be spent telling the story... because it's a good one. The story telling will be sporadic and I figure largely determined by whether or not the sun is shining. But, fuck it, it's England.... updates will be regular! I hope you enjoy. Feedback of a constructive nature welcome!

There's been much written online and offline about i-level over the last few days. Some of it is good and perhaps true; some of it insulting wank. The good includes Ian Darby's blog on i-level http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/darbyontv/archive/2010/05/06/is-this-the-end-for-i-level.aspx which is a smart analysis from someone not in the business. My only regret is that we didn't get the chance to show people how far i-level had changed during the last year before the undertakers arrived. The good also includes Arif Durrani's posting on Media Week http://mediaweek.co.uk/News/MostRead/1001703/Its-over-I-Level-slides-liquidation/ not least because it's one of the few examples of journalism on our demise that appears to have investigated, researched and verified before publishing. It's factually pretty spot on.

So to start: of course when we lost the COI media buying contract back in February this year we were in trouble. What business wouldn't be with 45% of its revenues being lost in one go? And of course we shouldn't have gotten ourselves into being critically hooked on one client.... but there are reasons for that; some of which are acceptable and some of which aren't... more of that later. But, the reality is that we'd fought and fought hard to address the funding 'challenge' this presented. And the other reality (that it's really tough to stomach now everything has been destroyed) is that just five days ago on Tuesday we had two solutions on the table that would have been delivered within the next couple of weeks. Tuesday the administrators were appointed. Tuesday someone entered the madhouse, picked up a large gun and delivered effective and total destruction.

For now a tribute to all the beautiful people that I worked with at i-level. You welcomed me into the role of CEO less than a year ago; you were supportive; you embraced change; you were passionate; you became great friends; you made me laugh; you let me get away with a very poor 'sensitivity dial' to quote Mark. I know I didn't get it all right and I regret certain decisions. But, boy, did we transform. We could have done it you know... but that chance isn't ours anymore. As a poor alternative, let's celebrate what was a time of inspiration and hard work.

For me it was always about the people. So for the moment it's all about the people... and the pictures above are just some, not all, of the beautiful people that made i-level.

Media week article - good article, shame about the picture

2010-04-20T23:08:00.002+01:00

Stephen Rust writes the next chapter for i-Level

Stephen Rust, group chief executive of i-Level, tells Harriet Dennys why the business is reinventing itself as an integrated digital communications agency with a focus on the consumer

Stephen Rust, group chief executive, i-Level

Something feels different about i-Level - and it isn't just the office redecoration in the new brand colours of blue, purple, orange and green.

The reinvention runs deeper; it is a complete repositioning and change of direction to move the game on, with new people, a new structure and a new purpose, based around the three themes of "clarity, clients and colleagues".

From this week, the digital agency is regrouping into seven divisions, including a new client services division to act the interface between agencies and clients, and a new creative activation unit. For the first time, i-Level is branching out into digital creative work to support the agency's social media department Jam, led by Richard Costa d'Sa.

The rethink about what i-Level stands for is a response to the unstoppable rise of social media, which allows consumers to have myriad conversations with brands, and clients' increasing requirements for integrated campaigns. The independent digital agency, which broke the mould when it launched in 1999 as a display advertising specialist, needs to evolve again. Quite simply, the world has moved on.

The driving force behind the change is group chief executive Stephen Rust, who was promoted to the role last June after David Pattison moved up to become non-executive chief executive. When Rust started last summer, he drew up a "road map" for the agency indicating where it needed to go, but even he couldn't have foreseen the five-car pile-up around the next bend: the potentially catastrophic loss of the COI's digital account, which made up 40% of the agency's turnover.

Throw in the loss of the £3.5m Sony Electronics digital media business to OMD UK in January and the departure of group managing director Faith Carthy, who left last August following the bedding in of the management buyout backed by private equity firm ECI, and it is understandable why industry observers have questioned i-Level's future as an independent digital media agency.

But Rust, who joined i-Level as group chief financial officer in January 2008, agrees the agency needs to "raise the bar" and has set about writing its next chapter with zeal. "Unless we do that, we are dead," he says. "Clients are incredibly sophisticated now and they are looking for strategic leadership and direction online. We need a real focus on what the consumer is doing: a really integrated, joined-up approach."

And when Rust is asked whether i-Level still sees itself as a digital media specialist, the answer is an emphatic "no". "Media is increasingly a smaller part of our business," he says. "Video, paid search and natural search all need to interact - we no longer distinguish between paid and natural search - and social media is booming. We need to understand the customer journey and deliver more targeted activity."

Rust has dropped the "media" part when describing the business, rebranding i-Level as an "integrated digital communications agency". With the company moving into new territories such as reputation management and buzz research, management grading structures have been collapsed to "emphasise different skills". "You don't have to be a people manager to develop," says Rust. "If you have a brilliant planner, let them be a brilliant planner, and don't put a ceiling on what they can earn."

Integrated communications

I-Level's chief planner is Adam Fulford, while Jonathan Barrowman, who joined from Initiative to lead the COI account, is the new head of client services. Jamie Kenny is head of strategy, Martin Lawson leads the insight team, and Ian Thomson's technology team has a head of emerging platforms, Ollie Newton, who keeps the agency up-to-speed with technologies such as the iPad and online video.

Two activation divisions - campaign and creative - complete the line-up. The campaign unit covers media, performance and search, while the creative team, led by the newly promoted Alex Miller, includes the social media unit Jam and the new content team. Rust says: "The creative offering is a move away from what we have done historically. The team will initially deliver creative brand experience to support social media in a focused way, such as a Facebook page or mobile apps."

Meanwhile, the agency has gone "pitch mad" to win new business, with 16 active prospects in the pipeline. Rust declines to say which accounts the agency is chasing - "let's win them first" - but this year i-Level has already won business from Comet, Gala Coral and Samsung, as well as seo activity for a government-funded agency that Rust cannot publicise. He does, however, reveal that about 20% of the agency's total revenue for the year to the end of March 2010 comes from new business.

Rust says: "We have to work hard to make new business a priority, because historically i-Level was trying to hang onto the tailcoats of massive growth from existing clients. If the phone rang with new business, we didn't have enough staff to manage the existing clients - let alone new ones - because they were growing so quickly. But four new people have joined new business, led by Natalie Mead, and we are making progress through the rounds, so I am hoping we will get good news."

The integration of digital has widened the competitive set for pitches - i-Level now competes against network media agencies and boutique creative shops - and Rust plans to evolve the agency again to give i-Level a "serious point of differentiation". Model 3.0 is a work in progress for now, but Rust's big idea is to focus on the consumer - an evolution of mindset, rather than another restructure.

"It is important to be able to talk about what makes us different, otherwise we will drift into the wallpaper," Rust says. "In two years' time I want i-Level to be seen as an inspiring, leadership brand, and we only will achieve that if we do great work."

If the business sticks to its new motto of "smart but not smartarse, confident but humble", i-Level's next chapter should be an interesting read. Just don't call it a digital media agency.

2009
Group chief executive, i-Level

2008
Group chief financial officer, ilG Digital

2004
Group chief financial officer, search marketing agency WSPS (The Search Works and The Technology Works)

2002
Founding director, London Design Festival

1999
Group commercial director, Outrider (now WPP)

1989
Chartered accountant, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Age: 43

Lives: In Belsize Park with his partner Nick, with a second home on the Isle de Re off the west coast of France

Hobbies: Gardening, yoga and music - anything from High Baroque Bach cantatas to the Pet Shop Boys and the Scissor Sisters

Favourite media: Twitter, the Zuti London Underground iPhone app, Dave

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/features/profiles/996938/Stephen-Rust-writes-next-chapter-i-Level/

2010-03-27T17:40:00.003Z

"Predictions are a mugs game" says i-level CEO Stephen Rust

Remember 1999? That rather wonderful moment when the advent of the web made everything possible and shattered the key economic principle that a business needed a revenue model to sustain itself? And, of course, the promise to all of us that it would deliver fewer working hours, greater information and access to riches.

The future gazing of 1999 confirmed one thing. Predictions are a mugs game and a really special kind of mugs game where technological advancement is driving change so very quickly.

Whilst not a prediction in itself, there is one thing that has had a massive impact on the power and reach of the web. A facilitator that has placed online firmly at the centre of so much of our world today. That thing is speed. Without faster connections and processing speeds, consumers would have found something more interesting to do. And, as we all know, the consumer is not only always right but pretty important in determining the success or otherwise of a brand.

Given how off the mark the 1999 predictions of new economic models were, predicting the future of online from here must be a mugs game. Technological development hasn’t slowed so who knows what’s round the corner. What I can be sure of is the ongoing importance of some key facilitators – things will be faster (again), more mobile and much better connected. Nothing insightful in that per se. But these facilitators will continue to drive massive change and, as in 1999, the consumer remains at the heart of this.

Speed, mobility and connections will further accelerate a key power shift that has been taking off during the last two years or so. A shift in power from brands and big organisations to consumers. And a shift that is accelerating. A shift that is important and will have an impact on all of us in ways that we cannot even see today.

What this means is that a consumer’s actions as a consumer, rather than as a tiny and rather meaningless constituent of a massive demographic group, are more visible to brands than ever before. Brands, agencies and publishers who don’t respond to this in a meaningful way will sit back and watch their businesses crumble.

This power shift started with the advent of search, the first significant and popular development that enabled consumers to do what they wanted. The more recent advent of ‘social networking’ has turbo charged this. Researching, asking questions and increasingly having (a very public) opinion about a product, service offering or experience is really powerful. Consumers are creating new connections and being heard by other consumers in a way that has never happened before. The consumer has greater, faster reach than ever before. And consumers like to listen to other consumers. They certainly trust them more than brands.

Technological development has no doubt provided new ways to empower the consumer but, what digital has really delivered is the ability of brands to see what is being said about them and their competitors. This creates opportunities and threats. Brands that grasp this will win.

Of course, let’s not forget that consumer behaviour per se is not really changing. Folks are continuing to do what they’ve done since the dawn of time - have conversations. What digital advancement has done is enable brands to listen to what is being said and deliver a considered response (as long as they do it quickly!).

This shift of power to the consumer isn’t stopping. So I guess brands had better get used to it – as had their agencies and the publishing community. Broadcast messaging by brands to consumers, whilst never going away, is clearly reducing in importance. Brands that can develop more conversational, intimate exchanges with customers or potential customers will create opportunities. And if they can create online social experiences and interactions that are positive and leave consumers smiling, great. Response rates will have to be quicker and sharper. And, of course, brands will have to operate very differently when having a conversation in the new world, a world that is not theirs.

What does all this represent? That digital is growing up. This is great news and a long time coming. It means we can all start to get out of our silos and stop talking in terms of the new and the special but take a more considered and joined up view of the world. This will create opportunity and therefore winners and losers. And one of the clear winners will be the consumer. We are all consumers so I figure that is a good thing.

http://acceleration.biz/blog/2010/03/17/predictions-are-mugs-game-says-i-level-ceo-stephen-rust

Media agencies rule over creative agencies.... surely not!

2009-10-19T23:22:00.003+01:00

The advertising industry is facing a Darwinian era of adapt-or-die, said Damian Blackden, president of Omnicom Media Group, speaking at theMediaGuardian Changing Advertising Summit today.

Blackden added that the fundamental structural shift in consumers, and advertising, to online – exacerbated by the recession – has left many traditional agencies caught out using out-of-date business models.

My question is pretty simple: does he not have a full length mirror? To muse that perhaps media agencies are more adapt than creative agencies may be true and, indeed, I couldn't possibly comment. But, by implication, to state that media agencies are not hanging onto 'out of date business models' simply has to be foolish in the extreme. No?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/19/damian-blackden-omnicom-media-group

2009-09-03T22:12:00.003+01:00

Starcom and i-Level team up for £250m COI media-buying pitch

Media agency Starcom and digital agency i-Level form alliance in winner-takes-all race for COI's media-buying contract

Mark Sweney
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 September 2009 07.03 BST

Media agency Starcom and digital agency i-Level are are forming an alliance to pitch together in the winner-takes-all contest for the government's mammoth £250m-a-year media-buying business.

The Central Office of Information, which as co-ordinator of the government's marketing and communications activity is the UK's biggest advertiser, announced plans for a dramatic overhaul of its media-buying arrangements in July. The aim is to move from using several agencies to using just one.

Currently the COI splits its media-buying business between Carat, Starcom and MediaCom, with i-Level handling all digital media planning and buying.

I-Level and Starcom MediaVest Group, which handles the buying of radio advertising for COI, are hoping an alliance will put them in the best position to give COI a fully integrated media-buying service.

i-Level, which handles digital buying and planning across the COI's £40m online ad spend, faced being frozen out of the pitch process as it has no capability to service traditional media sectors such as TV and press.

"Clearly for us there was a need to find a credible partner to work with," said the i-Level group chief executive, Stephen Rust. "What we are looking to do with the COI brief [together] is that we are very clearly saying we are driving at a new model for the biggest media spender in the UK."

Aegis-owned Carat handles the COI's media buying for TV and cinema, while WPP-owned MediaCom handles press. i-Level has held the centralised digital planning and buying business since 2003, while Starcom has held the radio business since 2005. The agency has also previously held the TV and press accounts.

"This is one of those very rare occasions that something comes along on a scale that truly calls for working together in a new way," said the Starcom MediaVest Group chief executive, Stewart Easterbrook.

In July, the COI revealed that overall government spending on marketing and communications had grown by 43% year on year to £540m in the 12 months to the end of March.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/03/starcom-ilevel-coi-pitch-alliance

2009-08-24T23:05:00.001+01:00

Ah, the delight of hearing the 'twit-twoo' of an owl in our garden in NW3.... feels like the countryside (not that I EVER heard one there) but with increased chance of cultural interaction and, clearly, much nicer shopping ;-)

2009-08-18T22:17:00.000+01:00

Steve Barrett, mediaweek.co.uk, 18 August 2009, 10:10am

Will I-Level bring new meaning to the word digital?

LONDON - There has been a lot of debate recently about the word "digital" and whether it still has any stand-alone relevance or validity.

Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week

In May, Decipher's Nigel Walley told Media Week's Media 360 conference the word had become redundant in a media context. He believes it has become a catch-all term for too many things or is used just to mean the web and a bit of mobile, ignoring big-ticket environments such as TV, radio and outdoor.

It's certainly true that everyone is bored with the oft-chanted mantra that this agency or that media owner is "putting digital at the heart of their business".

But if digital is redundant, where does that leave "digital" agencies? In this issue, Media Week profiles Andrew Walmsley, co-founder of UK's best-known and most well-established independent digital media agency - I-Level - as it celebrates its 10th birthday (see page 12).

Over the decade, I-Level has fiercely guarded its independence, despite conversations and approaches from established agency networks. Walmsley's view has been that I-Level would be used as a sticking plaster for a network catching up on "digital", and would lose its very essence by merging with a full-service organisation.

I-Level has done some excellent and award-winning work for the Government, but the COI's decision to consolidate its media into one agency has sharpened the focus of Walmsley's planning for the next decade. The COI accounts for £39m of I-Level's £100m turnover and it can only re-pitch for the business in an alliance with another agency providing "traditional" media services.

Is this the right time for I-Level to bite the bullet and do a deal with one of the agency networks pitching for the COI business? Or is it an opportunity to create something genuinely new - similar to what I-Level did on launch 10 years ago - with an agency model for a permission-based advertising age where the consumer is king?

The strategy Walmsley and new chief executive Stephen Rust adopt will say a lot about the future of "digital" within the marketing services mix.

Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week, steve.barrett@haymarket.com
www.mediaweek.co.uk/stevebarrettblog

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/927547/Will-I-Level-bring-new-meaning-word-digital/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

COI consolidating media buying

2009-07-27T22:21:00.001+01:00

COI

27/07/2009

Stephen Rust, Chief Executive Officer, i-level Group comments here.

COPY OF COI PRESS RELEASE

The Central Office of Information (COI) has announced that it will create a centralised media buying framework, meaning that one company will handle all of its media buying.

To date, COI has tendered its media buying contracts by medium. These arrangements are set to expire in March 2010.

Full integration across media platforms and channels is expected to deliver a number of benefits for both COI and its government and public sector clients.

As the media landscape is transforming, pulling all COI spend together - digital, mainstream and sponsorship - will deliver increased efficiencies both within and across channels, including further savings on media costs.

It will also lead to even more effective campaigns as COI embraces new and emerging opportunities into its solutions. Plus, a more streamlined administrative process and more efficient gathering of data will speed up the evaluation process.

Peter Buchanan, COI Deputy Chief Executive said:

"Our media buying performance has been outstanding with nine years of continuous improvement and very impressive results compared to the Billett's pool. The support we have received from our clients has been a key factor in this success.

“However, the market is changing with the integration of on and offline, multi channel media ownership and deeper partnerships with media owners. COI needs to maintain a market leading position and continue to deliver the very best prices for all our clients.”

COI’s decision to create one single supplier framework forms part of its ongoing ‘Agenda for Integration’ announced last April following an independent review of its media buying systems by RAB (Radio Advertising Bureau) founder and media industry expert, Douglas McArthur OBE.

The review, which captured a wide range of industry opinion from media owners, agencies and other government departments, recognised that media buying does not exist in isolation, but needsto be defined within a wider planning system and a much more inter-related and interactive ‘media ecology’ that delivers effective integrated solutions.

Stephen Rust, Chief Executive Officer, i-level Group responds: “We were appointed by COI to the centralised digital media planning and buying account in May 2003. Since then, the account has developed from display and now also includes digital strategy, natural and paid for search, mobile, online/internet TV, social media, sponsorship, partnerships – with many exclusives or media firsts – and data analytics. i-level implements an integrated online approach and also works with creative and other media partners as a matter of course for various clients, including COI.

This review by the COI for media integration is perfectly right for the current times – and something we feel we understand and, more importantly, practise today. COI has indicated a desire to acknowledge the changing media landscape and advertisers are right to demand increased efficiencies, without losing quality of strategic insight or specialist expertise.

The COI has also identified that they would welcome consortia solutions. This creates a great opportunity to create a new model providing best in class services.

Digital is becoming the core enabler and therefore fundamental from a planning, delivery and data gathering perspective; we believe it needs to play a central role in communications in the future.

Now things get really interesting!

2009-06-01T22:18:00.000+01:00

From the June edition of The Leveller

01/06/2009
Stephen Rust, Chief Executive Officer

http://www.i-level.com/resource-centre/the-leveller/now-things-get-really-interesting

It's impossible to argue that digital in all its forms hasn't irreversibly changed the possibilities for brand owners reaching consumers and, therefore inevitably, the long established economic model for media owners. Are things about to move up a gear with the collision of social networks in their broadest form, new distribution channels and the opportunity that iPlayer and the potential of Project Canvas [The BBC, ITV and BT broadband TV joint venture] present?

Marketers have known for far too long that the top three things that consumers most dislike about watching TV are (1) commercials; (2) can't rewind; and, (3) can't watch when I want. iPlayer's success with over 270m programmes viewed during its first year is difficult to counter and clearly demonstrates that it was addressing exactly the three things that consumers don't like about watching TV. iPlayer was just the start though. With the growing success of new distribution networks, in part led by the success of viral marketing techniques, perhaps a new revolution in marketing is about to take place.

A number of organisations now offer sophisticated online targeting and distribution for viral advertising -advertising that's relevant and engaging and delivered at the point of maximum impact. Does the combination of greater access to TV programming online together with the ability to slice and dice your audience mean that mainstream broadcast advertising is in for a shock? In my reckoning, yes. And it will herald a revolution in the way brands think about reaching new audiences with faster to market, highlytargeted and therefore relevant - and inevitably more cheaply produced - broadcast ads.

Some brands are struggling to adapt to the current new world order of user generated content where you need permission to engage and interact and your behaviour has to be demonstrably different to the old world of mass broadcast messaging. Others (think Nike) get it. And media owners will be in for yet another shock to their increasingly fragile economic model - if consumers move their TV consumption habits away from your channel to another platform, then the advertising $$$ will clearly follow. The one thing that's certain is that the bumpy ride will continue.

The starting gun was fired by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in CERN back in 1990 and the race has a long way to run before the finishing line is in its sight.

CFO steps up to become i-Level Group CEO

2009-05-20T22:54:00.001+01:00

Marketing Week

20/05/2009

i-level Group, the parent company of digital agency i-Level, has appointed Stephen Rust as its chief executive. He replaces David Pattison, who stepped down from the role last October and will now become non-executive chairman.

Rust joined iLG as chief financial officer last January to support the management team in advance of May’s private equity-led buyout that saw ECI Partners take a majority stake in the agency group.

Read the full article at Marketin g Week.

i-level makes Stephen Rust Group CEO

2009-05-20T22:52:00.001+01:00

New Media Age

20/05/2009

i-level Group, the holding company for media agency i-level and Generator consultancy, has appointed Stephen Rust as CEO.

Rust, who is promoted from being chief financial officer, replaces David Pattison who is becoming non-executive chairman after John Bartle stepped down from the position.

Rust’s previous role will be filled by Nik Holgate, who joins from Posterscope, part of the Aegis group, where he was chief financial officer.

Read the full article at New Media Age (subscription required).

2009-05-20T22:47:00.003+01:00

Media Week

20/05/2009

LONDON - I-level Group, the holding company for digital agencies i-level and Generator Consultancy, has promoted chief financial officer Stephen Rust to group chief executive, replacing David Pattison, who becomes non-executive chairman.

In addition, Nik Holgate has joined I-level Group as group finance director from Posterscope, where he held the same role.

Rust was appointed by I-level Group in January 2008 as chief financial officer, to support the management team in the private equity-led management buyout of the company in May 2008.

He joined I-level Group from The IMW Group - which comprises The Search Works and The Technology Works, where he was chief financial officer from 2004.

Prior to The IMW Group, Rust was managing director and chief financial officer of The London Design Festival.

Andrew Walmsley, co-founder and I-level Group deputy chairman, said that having been with the company for over a year, Rust is "already a key and integral part of the management team," adding that his track record "is a perfect combination to ensure we focus our offering in line with client requirements and keep the agency at the forefront of the sector".

Read the article at Media Week.