Rob Rakowitz

Director of Global Media

Mars Inc.

In a rapidly changing media landscape, how do you ensure the continued growth of a portfolio of iconic billion dollar brands? Rob Rakowitz was brought into Mars to help answer that question. He has worked with marketing and media experts inside and outside of the company to raise the profile of media and to leverage new media opportunities to accelerate the growth of old brand favorites.

By viewing media not just as a mass reach vehicle, but more and more as an opportunity to achieve highly targeted reach and enable relevant messaging at key times to drive commerce, Rob is working with his peers to quickly advance the journey underway for the Mars media culture.

A key aspect to Rob's approach is to actively engage with other Mars operating units. Rather than allowing the media function to be isolated from other departments at the company, Rob is working closely and collaboratively with his partners on the commercial (procurement) side of Mars Inc. who are in turn taking responsibility to ensure that the company's media investments are being invested with diligence and discipline. This collaboration extends to research, where he is working to help the analytics and insights leads to not only fine-tune the communications model, but to determine how it evolves in a world where everything increasingly communicates and transacts. Collaboration, inside and outside of Mars, and capability building have served as a foundation for the evolution underway within the Media@Mars Community.

Rob feels that "media is now such a central discipline in the marketing mix and more powerful than ever connecting brands with the right consumers; the convergence that media and technology is facilitating between channels, content, consumers, customers, and commerce will be the key to many of our brands’ growth." While many CPG companies have historically been slower to adapt to the new realities of modern media thinking, Rob is championing Mars units to harness new technologies and methods, especially in areas like data-driven marketing and programmatic buying.

Having already impacted the Mars media culture in a very short period of time, there is little doubt that their ambition to be a great consumer packaged goods company in media will be achieved under his careful stewardship.

Prior to his current role at as a client at Mars, Rob was an agency veteran, with experience on the creative and media perspectives. He was most recently at Mindshare where he led strategy for American Express’s global brand, new products, and innovation efforts. Rob’s career has always been marked by embracing all disciplines and by a drive to breakdown the increasingly complex communications landscape in the pursuit of successful programs which add value to consumers’ lives. He has a proven track record of helping teams understand the benefit that media can bring, when linked to business and brand drivers, to deliver sustainable and distinctive growth. His unique ability to build and guide brand teams in creating consumer connections has won awards ranging from Cannes Lions to the Jay Chiat Strategy Award.

Rob currently lives in New York City with his wife, Jessica, and their 3 year old son, Henry. Rob is a competitive cyclist and boasts several state championships and an international silver medal and bronze medal. The mix of grit and science that cycling requires has shaped his focus on precision and passion for building teams. Rob holds a BA in Political Science from SUNY Albany and an International MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.