7 seats left:

Join us Dec. 1-3 in New Orleans for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

SECURE YOUR SEAT

The Digiday Questionnaire with Rob Norman

The famous Proust Questionnaire comes from a popular 19-century parlor game in which guests were asked to answer a series of questions to reveal the respondent’s true nature. Digiday is updating the Proust Questionnaire for the digital media industry. If you are someone you know would like to answer the Digiday Questionnaire, contact me at the email address below.

Our first subject is Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM, WPP’s media agency arm.

The Digiday Questionnaire: Rob Norman

  1. What about working in the digital media industry makes you happy?
    Abundance of innovation, optimism, and opportunity.
  2. What about working in the digital media industry makes you miserable?
    Scarcity of perspective, patience, context and consistent ways of assessing real value to business.
  3. What is the worst fault you see in your area of the industry?
    The dual paradox of perfect measurability and imperfect accountability and of ridiculous friction in a world of ones and zeros.
  4. What positive changes do you hope to see in the industry?
    That profitability gets the attention it deserves as the real  measure of business success and as a prerequisite of great service delivery.
  5. What is the quality you most admire in a digital media CEO?
    The ability to manage from concept to delivery and the good sense to know that CEOs report to everyone working for their company as well as to shareholders.
  6. What tech company do you wish you started?
    Google. It might not last forever but it did change business forever.
  7. Silicon Valley or Madison Ave.?
    I prefer the shopping on Madison Avenue and like the Morgan Library a lot.
  8. Track or Do Not Track?
    Track. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but don’t be evil (ever).
  9. App or mobile site?
    HTML 5
  10. If you could only use one of these for these rest of your life: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Spotify, which one?
    Facebook. I fear loneliness.

More in Media

Forbes launches dynamic AI paywall as it ramps up post-search commercial diversification plans

For the latest Inside the publisher C-Suite series, Digiday spoke to Forbes CEO Sherry Phillips on its AI-era playbook, starting with its AI-powered dynamic paywall to new creator-led commercial opportunities.

Creators embrace Beehiiv’s push beyond newsletters

Creators are embracing Beehiiv’s new website, product and analytics tools to help them grow beyond the competitive newsletter space.

Illustration of a performer balancing money weights on a tightrope, symbolizing how brand safety tools help marketers maintain performance and control.

Media Briefing: Publishers turn to paid audience acquisition tactics to tackle traffic losses

Publishers facing declining organic traffic are buying audiences through paid ads and traffic arbitrage, and using AI tools to do it.