News

Mullen announced today that Steve Calder has been promoted to the new position of Chief Media Officer. Calder is the leader of mediaHUB, Mullen’s media planning, buying and analytics group. Calder conceived and led the development of mediaHUB in 2005 to drive innovation in the agency’s media services group and to fuel new business development. In the ensuing two years, mediaHUB has enjoyed consistent success, including recent new business wins with IAC/Interactive Corp., Timberland and UPromise, all of which selected mediaHUB as their media agency-of-record following competitive reviews.

“Steve has done a tremendous job branding Mullen’s media offering and creating a differentiated position in a crowded and competitive marketplace,” said Joe Grimaldi, chief executive officer of Mullen. “Under his leadership, mediaHUB has taken on the media giants and demonstrated the enduring power of innovative, accountable media strategy tied to an agency with a heritage of creative thinking.”

Within mediaHUB, Calder has created specialty practices focused on innovation in social networking, user-generated content and in-game advertising. He has forged strategic alliances with sister IPG agencies to identify next-generation advertising platforms and he has bolstered mediaHUB’s search marketing capability both internally and in tandem with IPG’s Reprise. Calder and his team have also developed the agency’s proprietary analytics service known as Proof™, which precisely forecasts media plan outcomes based on comprehensive consumer and media channel analysis.

Calder joined Mullen in 2003 from AKQA in San Francisco, where he was managing director and led clients including Palm, Sony Computers, Visa, CNET and Heinz. He has more than 20 years of experience in the media field, including previous engagements with Publicis and Benton & Bowles, where he started his career.