John S. Muszynski, Chief Investment Officer, SMG Exchange (SMGX)

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John Muszynski HOF Speech

John Muszynski is a walking contradiction -- that's according to Jack Klues, a colleague and friend for more than 30 years, first at Leo Burnett Co., then at its media agency spinoff, Starcom.

"On one side, here's this old-school guy steeped in tradition and in values that I respect and wish that we could hold on to. And on the other side, here's a guy who is really quite revolutionary and forward-thinking in his approach to his job," says Klues, now CEO of Starcom parent ViviKi. "And I think about what a son of a bitch he is on the softball field, or on the hockey rink, or maybe even in a fishing boat, and what a competitor he is, but there isn't a more caring, compassionate person that I know on the planet."

He's the kind of guy you'd trust next to you with a loaded weapon, according to NBC Sports Group President Mark Lazarus who, as a Turner exec, made many deals with Muszynski. They took up bird hunting at the same time, talking business with shotguns in hand. "When you like and trust each other, you can go and do that together. And there's not everyone in the buying and selling community you can say that about."

When he was young, Muszynski planned to be a carpenter, but his father, a tuck pointer, insisted he go to college, if only to play hockey. Muszynski discovered marketing, interning at McDonald's while attending Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago. He went to work at McDonald's local ad agency while applying for a job at Leo Burnett Co. A position opened at Burnett in 1981 and he started in the Chicago agency's client service program. The first part of the program was in the media department. "I fell in love with the media department," says Muszynski. "And the rest is history."

Muszynski saw changes taking place that in turn created opportunities in media. "It was a conversation about cable TV and VCRs and boy, the technology was booming back then," he says.

By the mid-'90s, Muszynski was doing innovative deals. Burnett had several clients in the kids business, and Disney executive Mike Shaw told him the company planned to cancel its afternoon animation block. So he proposed using his clients' spending clout to get stations to carry the shows in return for discounted commercial time from Disney. He cleared the shows in more than 90% of the U.S., and delivered huge returns for clients such as Kellogg's.

Muszynski also started Starcom's national television buying group, which replaced a more decentralized system at Burnett. "A lot of those price bases that we created back then we're still getting complaints about today from sellers," he says.

Among sellers, Muszynski is known for being tough but reasonable. "He's a very competitive, intense, straightforward guy. No B.S.," says Jon Nesvig, former longtime president of sales at Fox. "Even though I know he'd rather be out fishing for bass, he's hung in there a long time."

"John is such a great negotiator. You're talking to him and you'll be pulling your hair out," says Joe Abruzzese, president of sales at Discovery Communications. "And then you know at some point John would pick up the phone and say OK, this is where we need to be. John was always really reasonable. But it took a while."

"He is just one of the most honest, straightforward types of negotiator," says Jo Ann Ross, president of sales at CBS. "He's got no hidden agenda other than to get a quality environment for his client."

Muszynski acknowledges being a competitive guy, in the office and outdoors, where he's won professional angling tournaments. "I take fishing and I make it a competitive sport. If there's a way of keeping score, I want to keep score and I want to be on top," he says. But he also learned from Burnett media department boss Willard Hadlock that "if you're not going to give the person on the other side of the desk a reason to do business with you, the first opportunity to not do business with you, he will.... They [aren't] going to want to do business with me if I'm going to be a jerk or try to take advantage in every single case I can. You're not going to bring me the better opportunities or give me the better price."

Muszynski uses his fierceness on behalf of his clients. "If my kids weren't going to play Nintendo, they weren't going to play video games because Nintendo is our client," he says.

Clients appreciate this dedication. "I think it's gr-r-reat that John has been named to Broadcasting & Cable's Hall of Fame," says Jim Jenness, who was a hard-to-please supervisor at Burnett and now is chairman of Kellogg's. "He delivers year after year in a way that develops a deep trust and respect from his agency colleagues and from his clients. This, combined with his ‘no-ax-to-grind' attitude, makes John someone folks throughout the industry want to work with time and time again."

"John is very respectful of his client relationships and looks to be a partner in business with you," says Lisa Cochrane, senior VP of marketing at Allstate. Muszynski helped Allstate implement its "Good Hands" goalpost nets at college football games by using his relationships with the networks to make sure they were seen on TV. He and Cochrane are also friends. He helped her find a lake house in Wisconsin near his, and he gets homemade pies. "She can really bake," Muszynski says.

Two years ago, Muszynski took on a different role at Starcom MediaVest Group, heading up a new unit called SMGx. Its aim is to "redefine how we use scale to our clients' advantage," he says. SMGx's approach is based "a little bit more on strategic intelligence and innovation rather than the gathering and collecting clout and hammering people for better pricing."

The new job means he's not doing as much negotiating as he'd like, "but we have very capable people in place. They don't need a whole lot of my hand-holding."
Away from the office, the past two years have been difficult ones for Muszynski. His son Josh died in December 2009. Last October, his wife Gail was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a noncurable type of bone cancer. After she went through two stem-cell transplants, Muszynski says his wife is now 99% cancer-free, but while she is technically in remission, "It will come back. We just don't know when."

Joe Abruzzese's wife, Sherrie, has become a close friend of Gail's and invited her to be co-chair of an American Cancer Society fundraiser in the Hamptons in August. "I think my wife used that event as a motivator for her to get better, to get stronger," Muszynski says. The event was attended by top execs in the ad sales community and raised a lot of money for research.

At 53, Muszynski looks forward to helping build advanced forms of television. "Creating these new models and new business approaches and new processes and new negotiating tools, that's pretty exciting stuff," he says. "I still love coming to work." -- Jon Lafayette