TRENDSETTERS: Publicitas CEO, Beat Roeschlin, Talks about the Merging of Advertising Formats and New Concepts of Ad Sales

Beat Roeschlin recognizes that media agencies and their advertising clients are becoming more discerning and more demanding in an age of multi-channel publishing. “It is no longer enough to answer the brief,” he says. “We are expected to deliver a solution that addresses an advertiser's marketing goals.”

In the year since Mr. Beat Roeschlin has taken on the role of CEO of Publicitas Media Sales, a division of Swiss-based PubliGroupe, two concepts have shaped his thinking about the company’s evolving role within the marketing industry:

1. The digitalizing of advertising means that ad formats can be used on a cross-media basis; i.e., the same commercials can now appear online, via an e-reader or on a mobile phone.
2. Cross-platform research, supplemental audience data and overall media transparency are critical to moving forward and delivering results

Prior to his role at Publicitas, Beat Roeschlin was CEO/President of the Board at Clear Channel’s International Advertising Division, where he managed the outdoor company’s Swiss operations and built its international airport advertising division in Europe. His Out-Of-Home background brings new perspectives to a company that has enjoyed long-term relationships with legacy media partners in the print sector.

Beat Roeschlin’s objective is to insure that Publicitas is the preferred partner for both media owners and advertisers worldwide through the representation of a variety of media that provide effective advertising solutions. He believes in a multi-channel approach that enables differing media categories to deliver on the specific communications needs of an advertiser. “Research and respective data will play an important role in accessing advertisers’ target groups", Roeschlin adds. “Investing in research and data is one of our company’s key objectives. We want to play a major role in the research initiatives that now define ‘total audience’ across platforms and increasingly across markets.”

He believes that audience behavior—whether defined by data on social demographics or neuromarketing-- is a critical element of targeting, which is inextricably tied to the future of advertising. “Classic reach models will be substituted by data models that provide reach through targeted communications with individual references.”

Roeschlin understands that such attitudes toward media diversity and audience measurement do not just have significance for the developed markets of Western Europe or the US, but also matter to the emerging world—whether exemplified by China, India or Latin America. He is interested in expanding in these markets, and also realizes that leveraging the Publicitas global network is indeed one of the cornerstones of the company’s strategies.

A second element of Publicitas’ forward movement is a focus on innovation. Their sales companies, Adnative and Publicitas, aim to be at the forefront of innovation and media excellence. Recognizing how agencies and their clients demand innovation, Publicitas sales teams, with their media-owner partners, are stressing the delivery of innovative and strategic thinking across borders to their advertising clients. In fact, Publicitas has created a series of "Innovation Forums" with some of Europe’s leading media owners to discuss examples of best practices in various countries. Or as Beat Roeschlin likes to say, “These individual ideas lead to proposals that offer advertising solutions that can be implemented with multiple media owners, in multiple markets.”