Meridian Internet Marketing for SEO, PPC and Internet Marketing

About Marc Kravitz

 

Marc began his career in film and video production after attending New York University’s Film School. He wore many different hats working in a variety of production and post-production roles before striking out on his own as a producer and editor.

After a number of years in production, Marc returned to school. After two years, armed with an MBA from Northwestern University, Marc entered the traditional advertising world. He began at J. Walter Thompson (now JWT) in Chicago and completed their Account Executive training program. He worked on several brands on the Kellogg cereal account, directing multi-million dollar advertising campaigns. Marc then moved to New York and worked on media and packaged goods accounts at the traditional agency side at Ogilvy & Mather.

In 1988 Marc joined Ogilvy & Mather Advertising’s pioneering Interactive Marketing Group (IMG) in New York. Led by Martin Nisenholtz , IMG was the first full service interactive marketing group in the U.S. operating within a major advertising agency. At IMG, Marc worked with blue chip agency clients – overseeing creative and strategic development - using interactive technologies to support their marketing goals and objectives. Marc supervised clients such as Sears, General Foods, Ryder and AT&T implementing interactive marketing programs online (Prodigy – the leading online service at the time) as well as via offline interactive media.

While at IMG, Marc was also a graduate level instructor at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he taught a class in Interactive Marketing.

During the pre-Internet early nineties, Interactive Television (ITV) was the focal point for interactive media (the “Information Superhighway”). The largest media and communications companies staged live trials as an initial foray into networked media. Marc led efforts for an AT&T / Viacom joint venture trail as Director of Content Development and Production at Downtown Digital from 1990 to 1994. He oversaw the efforts of a 75-person group developing pioneering interactive content and marketing initiatives. While there, Marc also established and oversaw the Consumer Design Lab to create a body of knowledge about ITV user interface and usability issues.

Marc was recruited to Ameritech (now AT&T) in 1994 to help launch a similar interactive television venture for the telecommunications giant. However in 1995 the interactive world’s attention and Ameritech’s focus shifted to the Internet when Netscape’s Navigator browser and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 1.0 launched. As Director of Multimedia Programming, Marc helped to formulate Ameritech’s initial Internet strategy and made investments in start-up Internet companies that offered strategic value to the company.

As Internet growth accelerated, Marc joined Classified Ventures, a consortium of leading national newspaper chains including the Tribune Company, Gannett and the New York Times. He was hired to direct the launch of Homehunter.com, a start-up resale real estate website. Later Marc was named Vice President of Marketing for all four of Classified Ventures real estate sites, including apartments.com. He held responsibility for maximizing traffic to the four websites, overseeing a multi-million dollar budget for offline and online consumer and B to B marketing.

A start up venture named Saleshound.com (today ShopLocal, owned by the Tribune and other newspaper companies) recruited Marc as Chief Marketing Officer in 2000. There he led all online and offline marketing efforts, directing an in-house staff and the efforts of an advertising agency, PR firm and search engine optimization (SEO) company. Saleshound.com’s traffic grew rapidly under Marc’s leadership. Later, when the dot.com boom fizzled, Saleshound.com changed its strategy and switched from a consumer destination site to web-services company (CrossMedia Services). Marc then led business development efforts, negotiating distribution deals with AOL, Yahoo and MSNBC.

Marc pursued a lifelong dream in 2002 and formed Blue Skies Media, a video and online development and production company. The company produced an award-winning DVD targeted to children and formed an online partnership with AOL’s kids brand KOL. In addition to other responsibilities, Marc led marketing efforts for the DVD and website, making extensive use of search marketing.