Brand Builder

From Cable Lampooner to Cable Marketer, Marissa Freeman Knows What Sells

By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/30/2012 12:01:00 AM

DirecTV several years ago ran an ad campaign that lampooned cable, mocking an alleged disregard for customer needs and service. Those TV spots took place in the boardroom of fictional Cable Corp. Inc. and were directed by satirist Christopher Guest, featuring actors from his coterie.

Marissa Freeman, now senior vice president of brand strategy and marketing communications for Time Warner Cable, admits that she was responsible for those commercials. At the time, Freeman was handling DirecTV’s account for the ad agency Deutsch Inc.

“I, unfortunately, did the cable boardroom ads,” she confesses. “I did. That was me. Me and Christopher Guest, and his whole ensemble cast.”

All is forgiven in the cable industry, because that work was the stepping stone to Freeman’s current job at Time Warner Cable, the nation’s No. 2 MSO, overseeing branding, advertising and marketing.

CLEAR MANDATE

“She’s always been my Wonder Woman,” says advertising legend Jerry Della Femina, Freeman’s mentor and former boss. “She’s going to succeed in everything she touches.”

When Freeman, 49, joined Time Warner in 2009 from Deutsch, her mandate was clear. She was to create a uniform brand for the cable operator and spotlight its edge — Internet, phone and on-demand choices — over rivals such as DirecTV, the MSO’s No. 1 competitor in New York and Los Angeles.

“As an industry, we have not taken credit for just how much we mean to our customers and how much better we are than DBS,” Freeman says. “It’s been sitting there, waiting for us to just grab it and do it.”

A self-described “Italian Jersey girl,” Freeman has spent more than 20 years working for ad agencies, not only Deutsch but BBDO New York, DDB Worldwide, Della Femina and Partners and N.W. Ayer, before moving over to the client side via Time Warner Cable.

Her father was a real estate/insurance entrepreneur in Clifton, N.J., and her mother pitched in on the family business, but they also painted and wrote. That gave Freeman her combined creative and business bent, leading her to Madison Avenue.

“Advertising is the perfect blend of art and commerce,” Freeman says. “So it was what I wanted to do. And I watched Bewitched, and I knew what the ad world looked like. It looked like fun.”

In the ad world, Freeman was considered a turnaround specialist, the “fix-it” executive who was often put on the accounts of clients who were dissatisfied and ready to leave an agency. For example, when a difficult client — then- Warnaco Group Inc. CEO Linda Wachner — was unhappy with the work being done by Della Femina’s agency, he put Freeman on the case. She saved the account.

“He believed in me,” Freeman says. “And so he would just throw me into the deep end and put me in the boardrooms with titans of industry, and say, ‘Go ahead and make it happen.’”

Della Femina says he has hired thousands of people, but in Freeman’s case, he knew within seconds from her body language, smile, attitude, confidence and fearlessness that she was a star.

“You automatically win when she’s in the room,” he says. Her turnaround skills are what ultimately led her to Deutsch and DirecTV, and then TWC.

GRAND CENTRAL IN BROOKLYN

Freeman credits the cable company with taking a “a flyer” on her. She was pregnant with twins, who are now 2½ years old, when Time Warner brought her on board. Six weeks later, she was put on bed rest. Her Brooklyn apartment became her offi ce, and Time Warner Cable and ad agency executives would go there for meetings.

“It was like Grand Central,” Freeman says. With a new “Moving Technology Forward” campaign, Freeman focused on how Time Warner Cable enhanced customers’ lives.

“The bundle is amazing and was a great thing for cable, and we advertised the heck out of it,” Freeman says. “But we weren’t storytelling. We talked about what we did, but not what we did for you.”

A recent holiday acquisition campaign was like “a Christmas card” from Time Warner Cable, according to Lynne Robertson, president of one of the MSO’s ad agencies, FAME Advertising. It didn’t stress price, but rather the joy that Time Warner could bring to a household.

“She has a very keen consumer ear … and an understanding of passion points and motivational points,” Robertson says. “She’s the total package.”

Freeman has been working on a new ad campaign, and tagline, for Time Warner that will debut Feb. 5.

“It is going to be breakthrough for our category and, hopefully, breakthrough in any category,” she says. “It’s just a fun, exciting truthful piece of communications.”

Freeman also helps out her husband, Zeke Freeman, with his business, Bee Raw Honey. It sells varietal honey that’s been a favorite of Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. At Freeman’s request, here is its website: Beeraw.com.

“I’m an advertising person,” she says. “If I can’t get my husband’s website in my story, I’m an absolute failure.”

MARISSA FREEMAN

Hometown: Clifton, N.J.

Age: 49

Current job: SVP, brand strategy and marketing communications, Time Warner Cable

First job: Media planner, Douglas Turner Advertising, Newark, N.J.

Favorite TV shows: Mad Men, The Good Wife.

High praise: “From the second I saw her, I got that feeling that this is someone I can trust. This is someone that’s going to represent me, the agency and everything we do well.” — Jerry Della Femina, chairman and CEO, Della Femina Advertising