Mediassociates

There’s a creative, analytical media agency thriving in the hills of Connecticut.

Founder Scott Brunjes: He went from the selling side to the buying side.

Its name is Mediassociates.

“We are a group of ‘New York lifestyle-refugees’,” Scott Brunjes, President and CEO, explained. “We’re people who want to do quality work, but don’t want to sit on a train for two hours each way, each day.”

The agency, just over eighteen years old, has experienced phenomenal growth, averaging 30% per annum over the last decade. Brunjes attributes the agency’s success to the quality of its people, their creativity and their analytical-savvy. “We’ll go up against anyone,” Brunjes told us. “Our focus is on demonstrable results and we have all the methodologies and analytics in place to do that.”

Mediassociates, with $60-million in billings, employs 30 media professionals in its headquarters in Newtown, CT.

Brunjes founded the agency after a career in local radio sales and management in Connecticut, migrating from the selling to buying side. “At Mediassociates, we go beyond just asking, ‘Did the advertising work?’,” Brunjes said. “Our mission is to measure to what degree it worked and with how much visibility.”

To Mediassociates, a media plan is a forever-evolving document. “It’s important to constantly monitor what parts of a plan are working and not working. This allows us to constantly fine-tune and adjust, forever optimizing its effectiveness.”

Southern New Hampshire University is one of many clients that benefits from the agency’s analytical rigor.

To illustrate the Mediassociates’ process, Brunjes cited their plan for client Southern New Hampshire University. Each media vehicle in the plan gets a unique url. By measuring web hits, the agency is able to obtain a relative gauge of effectiveness from each vehicle. From there on, it’s a matter of switching GRPs to the more effective vehicles.

“For instance, our client, Cessna Aircraft, is trying to sell $3-million to $40-million corporate jets to C-suite executives. Research would say split your print budget between Fortune and Forbes. As we measured the plan’s effectiveness, we discovered that we were getting five times the response from one versus the other. Because of this insight, we were able to optimize and build an even stronger plan the next year.”

For Cessna, Mediassociates’ optimization has helped sell multi-million dollar corporate jets.

While the agency plans all types of media, Brunjes cited recent changes in the media environment. “Right now about 50% of our buying is for online media. We incorporate a lot of pay-per-click, online video and retargeting media in our online plans.”

In addition to Cessna and Southern New Hampshire University, the agency’s client experience includes Gaylord Hotels (a division of Marriott), Montclair State University, the Navy Federal Credit Union, and several casinos in Oklahoma.

Montclair State University is one of the agency’s newest clients.

When asked about the agency’s most creative media plan, Brunjes mentioned a campaign for ProstaCycle, a nutraceutical for prostatitis, a condition of the prostate that affects people who do a lot of sitting like cyclists and truck drivers. The agency zeroed in on this unique set of prospects by placing talking urinal cakes in restrooms at truck stops.

“Say what you may,” Brunjes quipped,” but it was bulls-eye targeting. And when the truckers walked out, the product was available at the front counter.”

Now, talk about effectiveness…..