In a hiring coup, Nielsen Media Research’s parent company recruited Jon Mandel, one of Madison Avenue's most well-known executives, to be chief of a new business unit, NielsenConnect.
Mandel, most recently chief of strategic solutions for Group M, was appointed CEO of NielsenConnect by global information and media company VNU, which owns Nielsen Media Research.
Newly created NielsenConnect will draw information from the dozens of VNU companies that collect, analyze and report on consumer patterns and usage around the world.
VNU's companies, including Nielsen Media Research, gather media and marketing information such as consumer-purchase data, retail data, modeling assets, geodemographic data, television ratings, outdoor ratings, movie, book, video and radio data.
Prior to his corporate role at Group M, Mandel was chairman of MediaCom US, a Group M company. MediaCom plans and implements more than $12 billion per year of its advertising clients media spend.
Mandel will be based in VNU's U.S. headquarters in New York and report to chairman and CEO David Calhoun.
"NielsenConnect is about looking forward and anticipating what's coming next," Mandel said in a prepared statement. "It's about connecting consumer information in ways that have never been attempted so our clients can spot trends and move more quickly to maximize their relationships with their customers. I look forward to this exciting challenge."
A graduate of VassarCollege, Mandel joined Grey Advertising in 1974, working in various media-planning positions on General Foods and Procter & Gamble.
In 1977, he helped to start the network-television-buying group at Grey. When MediaCom was formed in the United States, Mandel was senior vice president and director of national broadcast at Grey and he was named chief negotiating officer of MediaCom.
Over the years building MediaCom, Mandel advised many accounts in various roles including co-managing director, chief negotiation officer, co- CEO, co-CEO of MediaCom Latino and chief global buying officer of MediaCom Worldwide, in addition to his role as chairman of MediaCom US.
