Keith Mackay, President of Strategy for Optimedia USA, has been named one of Adweek’s 2012 Media All-Stars, “A dozen of the most talented, innovative media point people for leading brands.”

After 10 years running Optimedia’s West Coast operations, Keith Mackay last September got a call from ZenithOptimedia North American CEO Tim Jones. The offer: to move cross-country to regional HQ in New York for the newly created post of president of strategy. The challenge would be to help upgrade all the agency’s U.S. planning processes for an increasingly complex media landscape.
Now Mackay oversees strategy for Optimedia’s five U.S. outposts—Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Indianapolis and New York—as they implement Live ROI, the sweeping new offering that ZenithOptimedia launched with Mackay’s help in April. Aimed at improving the efficiency of client spending through carefully tailored real-time analytics, Live ROI emphasizes the use of hard numbers to aid clients in successfully navigating fast-changing online ad-buying technology and media options.

That, of course, means Mackay spends much of his time sifting through a glut of data—including information about online consumer behavior, as well as more traditional market research—to identify choke points for client business, shape actionable insights, then execute strategies for brands such as T-Mobile. “It’s about looking at all that data and trying to uncover what it’s trying to tell us,” Mackay says. “For example, how does the way somebody searches inform us on how they shop?

That Jones would tap Mackay to oversee such an undertaking is not surprising. During his tenure as managing director of Optimedia’s Seattle and San Francisco offices, Mackay increased billings by 40 percent over five years while helping integrate traditional and digital media strategies for core client T-Mobile.

Since then, his expertise in crafting data-driven solutions to solve sticky business issues has continued to pay off for Jones and Optimedia. Over the past year, Mackay was responsible for landing $120 million in new agency billings from clients including Giorgio Armani, Nintendo, Princess Cruises and Cessna Air. —Gabriel Beltrone, Adweek.