New face. Same agency.

For a second year, ZenithOptimedia is home to the year’s up-and-coming media exec. So how did Tracey Lavender wind up the winner?

In efforts to identify the next gen media stars, strategy asked media directors who among their junior ranks had come up with the most innovative and strategic plans. We then profiled them in the May and June issues of the magazine, and asked media sellers across the country to vote on the campaign they considered the best of the bunch.

Lavender scored the top prize, thanks to her work on General Mills’ Fruit by the Foot and YTV’s Weird on Wheels. The program, which ran from June to November 2006, involved online and live-action games and sampling. As well, YTV extended popular shows by 15 minutes to play on the ‘Extending your fun’ Fruit by the Foot theme.

‘Tracey’s very passionate about media and her clients – putting one and one together and probably making three,’ says Mike Fielding, group account director at the agency, who works with Lavender on the General Mills account. ‘She knows her target and shares our objectives with our media partners to come up with great ideas that don’t come from just booking pages and GRPs.’

A Humber College media and English grad, Lavender joined Initiative Media in 2003 as a broadcast assistant, then moved to the planning department of ZenithOptimedia in 2004.