Millennial New Word Order

HOME By Kipp Jarecke-Cheng, Columnist Friday, Jan. 27, 2017

Since time immemorial, the olds have had an annoying habit of co-opting words and phrases created and used by the young’uns, then adding those once-secret words and phrases into their daily lexicons, lotsa times in advertising. Whether it was triggered by a Paleolithic “cool mom” copycatting her sullen teenaged daughter’s cave drawings or grandparents posting their own selfies and #TBT pics on the Book of Faces, the thrill and utility of having a language of one’s own is greatly diminished for young people, it seems, as soon as older generations (or marketers) get their hands on it.   That’s not to say that some learned and not-so-learned geezers aren’t inclined to use or make up terminology to suit their vanity or reading comprehension levels; otherwise, words and phrases such as “bigly” and “alternative facts” likely couldn’t have entered the mainstream vernacular as widely or as wholly as they have of late.   Still, there’s a long history of young people coming up with words and phrases that reflect the pop culture zeitgeist and media influences of the day, making them ripe for commercial picking. And while some youthful slang has been swept into the dustbins of jargon history (Gag me with a spoon, anyone?), some other lingo may end up standing the test of time and cross over to longer-lasting middle-of-the-road appeal and usage.   The sheer volume of new Millennial slang makes it difficult to keep pace with what anyone under age 35 is even talking about these days. But if marketers are looking for the next “crunk” or “FTW” to use ironically (or not-so-ironically) in their next campaigns, here are a few contenders on the Millennial dictionary soon-to-be co-opted by marketers short list:   af, adjective, meaning something is exceedingly that thing. May or may not be (but totally is) derived from a curse word and usually is used to describe a person (that girl is hot af), place (Arizona is hot af) or thing (this Totino’s pizza roll is hot af).   dead, adjective, not to be confused with the opposite of live. To be dumbstruck by something to the point of death (but not really). Variation: ded.    GOAT, adjective, acronym for “greatest of all time.”    live, adjective, not to be confused with the opposite of dead. To be inspired by something to the point of having life (but not literally).    low key, adjective, not to be confused with high key. Ambivalence with a twist. This year’s version of kinda sorta maybe.   slay, verb, not to be confused with giving (i.e., giving life). To achieve and/or accomplish something exceedingly well. This year’s version of “killin’ it.”   yassss, all-purpose exclamation, frequently followed by queen. “Yassss, queen, you are giving me life!”

Internet-Connected TV Penetration Reaches 74%

• Chuck Martin, Staff Writer, Yesterday, 6:43 PM

The television is becoming part of the Internet of Things in a big way.

The smartphone already evolved into the hub or central control point for most smart objects. These range from turning lights on and off to remotely monitoring front door or inside-the-home activity.

Besides the phone, and all the new Internet-connected home gadgetry, such as small appliances or remote switches, there remains one massively connected object in most homes, and that’s the television.

Consumers long ago either figured out (or had an installer figure out for them) how to get an in-home network up and running. That created the base for things to connect to, nicely ushering in the ability to add more TVs to the network.

The penetration of Internet-connected TVs among U.S. broadband households has increased about 50% since 2013, based on a new study.

Almost three-fourths (74%) of households now have an Internet-connected TV, according to the survey of 2,000 U.S. adult broadband users, conducted by The Diffusion Group.

Connected TV penetration grew 22% between 2013 and 2014 and another 15% between 2014 and the next year. Growth has somewhat slowed as the market nears saturation. Here is the pattern of connected TVs households over the years:

• 2013 – 50%
• 2014 – 61%
• 2015 – 70%
• 2016 – 74%

Television manufacturers saw this coming and, as a result, smart TVs dominate at retail. Any consumer looking to purchase a new TV is likely to get one that is Internet connectable, whether requested or not.

The TV and smartphone are sort of in the same boat for IoT in the home. Both already were widely adopted and used, so the leap for the TV and smartphone phone to join the IoT revolution was hardly a big one.

 

Nielsen Modifies Its Total Content Ratings Rollout, With ‘Limited’ Release on March 1

 

ADWEEK

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Publishers will only be able to share their own data publicly

By Jason Lynch

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3 days ago

One month after NBCUniversal asked Nielsen to put the brakes on its Total Content Ratings (TCR) rollout, the company has decided to modify its plans for making the new metric publicly available.

Now, instead of the release schedule it announced in September, in which all metrics would be available to all Nielsen clients—including all networks, analysts and press—on March 1, TCR will now have a “limited commercial release” on that day, said Jessica Hogue, svp product leadership, Nielsen.

Beginning on the date, publishers can choose to share their own data externally, with media, agencies or for other business purposes, but will not be able to release data from competitors. “When a publisher shares that information, we will make the same information available to agencies,” said Hogue. “It will be led by our media clients: for those that are ready and comfortable and want to be able to use the data, we want to support them to be able to do that.”

Nielsen announced the changes after presenting them during today’s senior research council meeting with media and agency clients.

“For us, this was about finding a solution that works for all our media clients,” said Hogue.

Nielsen no longer has a time frame for when all Total Content Ratings data will be publicly released. “We’re going to revisit and reassess at a later date,” said Hogue.

Last month, Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships for NBCUniversal, sounded the alarm about TCR by writing a letter to Nielsen execs asking them to put the breaks on the impending rollout. Yaccarino said she and her company have “deep concerns” about Nielsen’s total content ratings product, which she claimed is “not ready for release” and would do “more harm than good” in its current form.

Nielsen reaffirmed its support at the time for TCR and its rollout schedule, but earlier this month, the company said it was rethinking its strategy at the behest of its TV network clients and had “modified the way in which we will be sharing data during the agency evaluation period which begins in January.”

Yaccarino’s concerns were echoed by the broadcast network presidents, who told Adweek that as much as the industry is eager for a metric that will show how much their content is viewed on all platforms, they wanted Nielsen to get things “right” and delay the TCR release. “This is one of those things where, if it comes out and it’s a disaster, there’s no rolling it back,” said ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey.

Nielsen responded by telling Adweek, “There are no underlying methodological issues with Total Content Ratings (TCR) which is part of Nielsen’s Total Audience framework. We take data quality and validation seriously and have conducted extensive evaluation with clients who have implemented measurement.”

When Nielsen first unveiled its total audience measurement plans in the fall of 2015, executives had hoped to roll it out in time for last year’s upfront presentations, but implementation has proven to be a more difficult and time-consuming process than they had anticipated.

Mixed Results For 4Q TV Station Ad Revs

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017 Even despite the somewhat lower-than-expected political advertising revenues, some TV station groups are cheering the windfall that 2016 bought.   But are “core” TV advertisers -- those consistent year in and year out buyers of TV ad inventory --  getting the shaft around these periods? Meredith Corp. recently reported a big fiscal fourth-quarter period of $40 million in political advertising windfall -- up $798,000 versus the same period a year ago. But during that same time period, core advertising -- non-political marketers -- went in the other direction. Meredith’s nonpolitical advertising sank 11% in the latest quarter to $91.96 million and down 9% over the most recent six month period to $176.1 million. Political advertisers not only have the right to pre-empt other TV advertisers, but the Federal Communications Commission requires stations to charge political marketers the lowest rate available for that ad time slot. Also, the FCC requires equal share of advertising time for both political parties. All that created confusion for TV station advertisers in the fourth-quarter period. Some look to get the media re-expressed in other times in other periods -- or on other programs -- or move to other platforms, national TV networks, digital, or non-TV media. As a results, there can be higher costs overall -- just for all these adjustments. This seems to be getting worse, as general trends in political TV advertising keep rising. Local TV political advertising is expected to total $2.8 billion in 2016 -- down $500 million from earlier estimates. Still, all this is higher -- albeit, slightly -- from $2.7 billion registered in 2012, the last presidential election. Consider more change for TV stations in the next four years -- lower overall gross TV rating points and increasing more shifting ad dollars to TV station-owned digital platforms, as well as other non-owned digital platforms. All that might squeeze traditional linear fourth-quarter marketers more. Wait and see if more TV station groups post similar good/bad news 4Q results. Then draw up some better battle plans for 2020.

Why Human-to-Human Contact Is Too Important To Pass

by Laurie Petersen, Columnist, Monday, Jan. 30, 2017

We spoke wth Matt Tumbleson, CEO and founder of customer service platform Teckst, about the hierarchy of customer experience.    Q: You say marketers are straying too far from the human touch in their approach to customer experience and need to put their customers at the forefront.  A: While some would say we’re in a technology renaissance, I believe it’s time we distinguish the difference between a fad and accept that all the technology in the world won’t help make something already bad any better. We need to get back to basics and do a few things great before layering on new things.    Q: What are the basics? A: Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, I’ve created a hierarchy to help understand what’s basic, and what to move towards as needs are met. At the bottom of the pyramid is Human-to-Human interaction. Up until 2013, many companies like Barnes & Noble were closing brick-and- mortar stores and moving online, while others like Lyft and GrubHub were born digital. Amazon’s latest foray into opening physical retail stores further indicates that humans desire experiences, and computers cannot create experiences, but only augment them.    Technology-forward companies like L’Oréal are allowing humans to help customers in-store determine which hair color to purchase, while others like Madison Reed and  American Eagle totally missed the mark on what consumers want.  At what point did we lose touch with the hierarchy of customer experience?  Human-to-Human At the bottom of the pyramid is the human-to-human experience. Whether you are a major brand or a startup, the basic tenet of what we do as humans for work is provide services and products invented by humans to other humans.  This dates back to Mesopotamia when we first began farming and trading. The evolution wasn’t that humans stopped farming, it was adding in oxen to till rows that enabled humans to do more faster. The person who created the tools for the farmers was now an additional layer in the mix, but collectively it was from humans for humans.    This continues to hold true today with all companies. Humans are creating things for other humans, and what’s crucial is the human experience. Although many elements are being automated, it’s still from one human to another in some capacity. If this basic level of the pyramid is not set up properly, the rest of the pyramid will fall.   In this human-to-human level, channels such as email and phone are critical. Texting is becoming more prevalent, as this specific human-to-human interaction can be cumbersome to execute on mass scale. Texting allows for a truly human-to-human experience using a channel that lends itself to brevity.  Product Feedback Loop This may seem a little bit redundant to email, phone calls, and texts with customers, but it’s actually so important and distinguishably different so it needs another level on the pyramid. Once a product or service is purchased by a human from a human, the customer needs to be able to give clear feedback. Imagine walking into a clothing store to purchase something, and in the fitting room there’s no way to exchange a size or ask for help finding something new.    This same basic experience is critical for companies of all sizes to master. By focusing on making it easy for customers to provide feedback, the product and the company will thrive with constant feedback and improvement.    Social Sure, Facebook’s algorithms get messed up, and at times I’m angry that their stage for such sub-par products like chatbots is so large, but social is here to stay. And it’s not just Facebook. Snapchat proved that other players in the US can grow without Facebook buying them. And in Asia, there’s a bigger mix. From KakaoTalk to QQ, WeChat and LINE, a new crop of social apps and technologies are here to stay.  Once your company has mastered human to human and a working feedback loop, it’s time to ensure that advocates have their own stage to promote your product or service. This stage has proven time and again that it does far more good than harm, and allowing advocates to speak goodness is always a great thing for your company.    Start this year with a spring cleaning of your social channels. Ensure that all your social pages are cohesively designed, that you have a regular posting schedule, and that any two-way feedback (like that product feedback loop from above) is listened to, replied to, and documented.    Q: What’s at the top of the pyramid?  A: Novelties Alas, we finally made it to the top of the pyramid. This is where novelties such as chatbots, snapchat filters, and even contests and giveaways live. These are not critical to business, and even if they can be executed perfectly, without a solid foundation of human-to-human, product feedback, and social, your novelty execution may as well never happen.    Some brands are finding that executing on novelty items is negatively impacting business and causing more harm than good. It’s important that as a company no more than 10% of your time is focused on these novelties. They tend to be shiny and new and enticing to spend time on.  Ask yourself, “Is my pyramid solid?” before spending too much time on anything in the novelty category.    Bots and AI Bots and AI seemed like the perfect solution in 2016 because Facebook announced them and it became an overnight sensation. Literally, there are more than a million bots wrongfully telling dumb jokes as novelties to try and point out that companies understand their customers.   So far, chatbots have failed to deliver better customer satisfaction. This “quick fix” for providing a fake human-to-human experience to customers has resulted in a drop-off of 40% after the first text, and more than 80% of all consumers never use a chatbot more than once, according to  Venturebeat.  True human-to-human experience, however, like those that KLM has created — tying together all points of contact — are the opportunities most brands missed in 2016 and need to embrace in 2017.

Madison Avenue Manslaughter: What are the Prospects for Ad Agencies?

BY MICHAEL FARMER JANUARY 24, 2017 MICHAEL FARMER REPORT ARCHIVES

12 11 43  

Creative advertising agencies are, by their nature, cheerful organizations filled with frustrated and insecure individuals who weave good stories. Annual industry surveys of agencies are the last place to look for industry truth -- collective pessimism, which is what industry surveys reveal (i.e., "Ad industry morale drops 36% from 2015") is only one point of view, and it is outweighed by the colossal self-confidence exuded by newly-appointed senior agency executives in interviews with the trade press (i.e., "We are now completely focused on elevating the quality, impact and profile of our work. It is our very reason for being and nothing could be more important. My confidence could not be higher."). These same agency executives may acknowledge privately that their industry is in terrible straits, but since they need to believe in themselves and in their ability to lead their agencies back to success, they put on a good show.

What, then, can we say about the prospects for creative advertising agencies in the year ahead? Will senior executives' collective commitment overcome the industry's negative trends? Will senior executives demonstrate that they are championship swimmers who can conquer the undertow? Or, instead, will they be swept out to sea, victims of overconfidence and weak change programs?

Unfortunately, I cast my vote for the undertow. I believe that Madison Avenue's manslaughter will only worsen. Senior executive actions, as they have been defined, are inadequate, and creative ad agencies will be in a worse position at the end of 2017 than they are in today.

Let's define the undertow. Agency economics are deteriorating and have been steadily deteriorating for several decades. Scopes of Work (SOWs) have been relentlessly growing, fueled by client-led digital and social media experimentation, while procurement-led fees have simultaneously declined. This leads to a chronic erosion in the price that creative agencies are paid (fees divided by workloads). However, since agency SOW workloads are not measured in any meaningful way, the decline in price is not a familiar metric for senior agency executives. In their minds, there's no such thing as a price that agencies are paid for the work they do. The only price they're aware of is the hourly rate of their people. The fallacy in this, of course, is that clients are actually buying agency work, not agency hours, in the hope of growing their brands.

This is a problem unique to the advertising industry. Senior agency executives do not know of or track or fix their pricing problems. Pricing is not on their radar scope. Yet, ironically, industry pricing is the No. 1 problem facing senior creative agency executives today.

I've been tracking the price of agency scopes of work since 1992, when my firm developed a way to quantify the SOW workloads of our clients, normalizing the variety of SOW deliverables into a uniform measure of work, the ScopeMetric® Unit (SMU) -- a unit of work about the same size as a typical TV spot.

If the price received by my agency clients was indexed at 100 in 1992 (with inflation removed), it declined to 56 by 2004 and then to 35 by 2015.

This pricing problem has created Madison Avenue's manslaughter.

Declining prices have to be matched by declining costs, at least if profits are at all important. This means reduced salaries and limited bonuses for agency people. As it stands now, agencies severely underpay their people relative to other service providers, like Google, Facebook and management consulting firms. Check it out on Glassdoor.com, where salaries are published. On top of this, the underpaid creatives have had to double the amount of creative work they develop each year. Declining prices have stretched creative agency resources.

Falling prices, and the associated consequences, have brought about a decline in creative quality if we measure quality by the willingness of advertisers to keep agencies on their rosters. Alas; the length of agency relationships has fallen to only 2-3 years, significantly down from the 15+ years during the media commission days.

The undertow is pretty strong, and it is not being dealt with. There are few, if any, executive programs designed to put a floor under declining prices.

What, instead, are senior agency executives working on or talking about? Improved project management. Better data analysis. Improved new business pitching. Improved creativity and the winning of awards. The strengthening of digital and social services. Hiring new talent. Working in holding company relationships. Downsizing when profit margins are at risk.

These are not initiatives that have a chance of turning around agency performance. Let's not ignore the fact that clients single-mindedly focus on improving shareholder value, which only the management consulting firms take to heart as their raison d'etre. The consulting firms who now have creative capabilities pose a real threat to today's creative ad agencies. Consultants will mobilize their consulting and analytical expertise with their new creative capabilities to generate improved marketing results for clients, while ad agencies, remembering what made them successful in the past, will be stuck in a rut, thinking about how to become more creative.

Agencies have not yet reached a destructive tipping point. They can still operate and generate profits for the next few years, and newly appointed senior executives can trot out the tried-and-true agency slogans that convince themselves, if not others, that they have genuine turnaround plans.

But they are not really accomplished swimmers for the treacherous seas of 2017, and my bet is that the undertow will take down a number of them in the year ahead.

Even More Ad Dollars Heading To Mobile & Radio As Part Of Your Advertising Plan

 
January 23, 2017

According to a new report released by BIA/Kelsey, U.S. mobile ad spending will grow from $33 billion in 2016 to $72 billion by 2021, a 17 percent compound annual growth rate.

The location-targeted portion of that overall mobile ad spend is projected to grow from $12.4 billion in 2016 to $32.4 billion in 2021. This growth translates to 38 percent of overall mobile ad revenues today, growing to 45 percent by 2021.

Native-social ads are expected to derive $10.2 billion in 2016 and grow to $24.2 billion in 2021, according to the report. BIA/Kelsey says this growth stems from the format’s advantages, high performance and resulting demand. “For example, mobile screens lack real estate for traditional top and side banner ads that ruled the desktop web. A vertically scrolling feed (a la news feed) conversely holds greater capacity for ad inventory.”


Radio As Part Of Your Advertising Plan

(By Bob McCurdy) Advertisers and agencies are increasingly engaging us in search of marketing insights beyond Nielsen ratings. Providing these insights as to where, why, and how radio fits into a media plan is challenging and requires us to know our marketing “stuff” beyond simple statistics and surface clichés. What follows are marketing tenets I’ve reviewed with clients the past few weeks that enabled me to elevate our conversations. Reflect on your own personal ad experiences.

Market inclusively. All current customers, as well as other consumers who do not currently buy but have the wherewithal to purchase, need to be reached. As non-users become users, light users become heavy users, and heavy users become lighter users, the future revenue potential of any consumer will differ from their current revenue potential as economic and personal circumstances change. Over-targeting is the enemy of inclusive messaging. Relevance, not frequency leads to consumer action.

Takeaway: Reach never preach.

Advertising reinforces and refreshes memories that make a brand more likely to come to mind in buying situations. Competitive advertising neutralizes this, as do fading memories. This is why share of voice, maintaining a relative ad spend advantage, and consistency of advertising is critical.

Takeaway: “Being visible and on the shelf” contributes to share of market.

The limitations of demographics will continue to grow as gender roles continue to evolve and Boomers age.

Takeaway: Men account for an increasingly large percentage of shopping and Boomers (outside the 25-54 demo), have money.

Advertising’s impact does not end when the flight ends. Sometimes it takes time for “life” to generate the need for the product advertised.

Takeaway:  A “hard stop” exists on conference calls and does not exist when it comes to advertising’s impact.

A campaign that is deemed ineffective short term, can be effective long term, as newly acquired customers repurchase.

Takeaway:  “Conquested” customers who purchase long after the flight has ended have a considerable customer lifetime value.

“Flat” sales does not mean that advertising had no impact. It could well have insulated the client from competitive messaging.

Takeaway:  Maintaining sales in the face of a competitive ad onslaught is a “win.”

It’ll take longer to generate results for an advertiser who has been on hiatus. Consider heavying up media weight the first few weeks of the campaign with these advertisers. If a client has been advertising consistently, consider rotating in shorter-length commercials. Having meaningful marketing conversations with clients in 2017 is table stakes.

Takeaway:  Advertising is not like turning on the lights, and there does reach a point when shorter-length commercials can serve to extend an advertiser’s “visibility.”

There are great benefits to utilizing a media mix- reaching the heaviest users of multiple media instead of generating mounds of frequency against the heavy users of one.

Takeaway: The same number of impressions distributed across multiple media is more effective than the same number of impressions in a single medium.

There comes a point when the next ad dollar would be more productive spent on another medium.

Takeaway: Surpassing the point of diminishing returns is wasteful. The second exposure costs as much as the first but delivers less value than the first, the third exposure costs as much as the second but delivers less value than the second, etc.

The “challenger” needs to be nimbler, more creative, and command a larger share of ad voice to gain share.

Takeaway: The burden of proof lies with the challenger.

A 10% share brand that wants to remain a 10% share brand needs to “close” 10% of all new category buyers.

Takeaway: Only targeting current customers prevents this. Extend reach.

Advertising is not a result of sales, rather sales are a result of advertising. Budgeting advertising as a percent of sales is risky.

Takeaway: Budgeting in this manner is akin to looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

The first place to look for a client’s growth barriers is their current marketing strategy.

Takeaway: Look within before looking outside. Who are they not inviting in?

Bob McCurdy is The Vice President of Sales for The Beasley Media Group 

 

 

 

It'sOfficial:AjitPaiIsNewFCCChairman

The Republican commissioner announces his appointment to succeed Tom Wheeler as the 34th chairman of the FCC.

By Mark K. Miller & Tali Arbel, Associated Press

TVNewsCheck, January 23, 2017 5:11 PM EST

President Donald Trump has picked a fierce critic of the Obama-era "net neutrality" rules to be chief regulator of the nation's airwaves and internet connections. 
Monday afternoon, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai announced that President Donald Trump has selected him to succeed Tom Wheeler and lead the FCC. Several reports last week had said he was the pick.

 

“I am deeply grateful to the president of the United States for designating me the 34th Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,” Pai said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the new administration, my colleagues at the commission, members of Congress, and the American public to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans.”

Pai had been one of the two Republican commissioners on a five-member panel that regulates the country's communications infrastructure, including TV, phone and internet service. He's been an FCC commissioner since 2012. 

 

There are currently just three members on the panel. The Republicans' new majority at the FCC, along with their control of Congress and the White House, is expected to help them roll back policies applauded by consumer advocates that upset many phone and cable industry groups, including net neutrality rules that bar internet service providers from favoring some websites and apps over others.

 

Pai, an active Twitter user, posted Monday that "there is so much we can do together to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans and to promote innovation and investment."

AN INDUSTRY-FRIENDLY FCC

Pai has long maintained that the FCC under former Chairman Thomas Wheeler had overstepped its bounds, suggesting that he would steer the agency in a direction more favorable to big phone and cable companies. In a December speech, he expressed confidence that the 2015 net neutrality rules would be undone and said the FCC needed to take a "weed whacker" to what he considered unnecessary regulations that hold back investment and innovation.

 

Consumer advocates have been concerned that a deregulation-minded FCC could potentially allow more huge mergers, overturn new protections for internet users and lead to higher costs for media and technology companies that rely on the internet to reach consumers.

 

Pai opposed online privacy regulations that force broadband providers to ask consumers for permission before using their data, saying they are more onerous than the requirements for internet companies like Google and Facebook.

 

He voted against approving Charter Communication's $67 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable and a smaller company, Bright House - not because he opposed the merger, but because he thought some of the conditions required by the FCC, like barring data caps on home internet service, amounted to government meddling in business.

 

PAI VS. THE ZERO RATING

Pai also criticized an FCC report on "zero rating" earlier this month, characterizing it as a meaningless document that won't influence the FCC under Trump. The report, issued in the last days of the Obama administration, took issue with the way companies like AT&T and Verizon exempted their own video services from wireless data caps, effectively making them cheaper to stream on phones and tablets than rival services such as Netflix.

 

Future big media and telecom mergers may get a friendlier review under a Pai-led FCC. Pai voted to approve AT&T's 2015 acquisition of DirecTV. And while he told The Wall Street Journal in December 2013 that the Obama administration was likely to oppose Comcast's failed effort to acquire Time Warner Cable - he was right - he added that a Republican administration would be more likely to approve it.

The FCC currently has a 2-1 Republican majority and two empty seats, which will be filled by one Republican and one Democrat.

 

The son of immigrants from India, Commissioner Pai grew up in Parsons, Kan. He graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1994 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and won the Thomas R. Mulroy Prize. In 2010, Pai was one of 55 individuals nationwide chosen for the 2011 Marshall Memorial Fellowship, a leadership development initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
His resume:

• 1997-1998 — Law clerk for Hon. Martin L.C. Feldman, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Law Clerk.

• 1998-2001 — Trial Attorney at the antitrust division, telecommunications task force of the U.S. Department of Justice.

• 2001-03 — Associate General Counsel, Verizon Communications.

• 2003-04 — Deputy Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Court.

• 2004-05 — Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Policy.

• 2005-07 — Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights.

• 2007-11 — FCC, Deputy General Counsel, Associate General Counsel, and Special Advisor to the General Counsel.