Profile Archives
“Euro RSCG’s Salzman Named PRWeek’s PR Professional Of the Year,” Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ’Dog, March 14, 2011
Marian was named PRWeek’s PR Professional of the Year. Said David Jones, CEO of Havas and global CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide: “Fantastic news, because there is no harder worker than Marian, whose creative energy rarely sleeps. Marian’s understanding of the ever-changing media landscape, especially a command of where social media is taking us, her ability to spot trends and apply them across industries, and her laser focus on creating unique, successful campaigns for her clients, among so many other attributes, all help underscore the fact that I think PRWeek made a great call in naming Marian its PR Professional of the Year.”
“Marian Salzman, PRWeek PR Professional of the Year,” Everything PR,
March 12, 2011
Says blogger Mihaela Lica of Marian, who was recently named PR Professional of the Year in the PRWeek awards competition: “[F]ew people in her position can mention as many successes with their work, great part of which has always been in support of various humanitarian projects.” She later adds: “She’s a bit of a legend, with honorable mentions all over the world, a Huffington Post, CNBC.com, PRWeek and PR News columnist, an Ad Age contributor, and media darling—a powerful figure, and perhaps the first in years who genuinely deserves the prize.”
“PR Professional of the Year 2011,” PRWeek, March 10, 2011
Marian was honored with the biggest award for an individual in the public relations industry, just 19 months after taking over as president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR. According to PRWeek, “Each judge noted Salzman’s role as a thought leader, both within the PR industry and within mainstream media. One judge noted her ‘impressive thought leadership’ and role in articulating ‘important societal trends’ in the last year, while another judge lauded Salzman for ‘redefining success within the agency.'”
“Ad Agency X-Factor,” Financial Review BOSS, February 2011
The 2011 Trends Special of Australian Financial Review BOSS gets to the heart of Marian’s staying power on lists of the world’s top trendspotters. (Among other milestones, this profile notes that The Wall Street Journal “cited her as the first advertising professional to use online focus groups.”) “I crave cross-tabulations and get pleasure from writing algorithms to isolate interesting segmentations,” Salzman says, explaining how she makes sense of data. “I’m also a news junkie and comb the Internet for relevant facts and figures that put meat onto the bones of any trend stories… My goal is to stay on top of what may be next and why.” Click here for a PDF of the article.
“Mystic Marian,” Voyager, Dec. 1, 2010
Marian is one of the world’s top trendspotters—which doesn’t mean reading palms, tea leaves or tarot cards. She has built a life and a career around seeking information, creating buzzwords, and distilling observations and taking them mainstream, all of which has led to the release of her annual trends forecast for the past two decades. Once dubbed “Mystic Meg of the business world” by the British tabloids, says the writer of this profile in BMI Airway’s in-flight magazine, Marian has always led a busy, enthusiastic life, which has informed her trendspotting (the writer calls that “part study, part intuition”). What’s next? Marian sees people wanting to unplug, leading to more resorts offering media-free destinations.
“Marian Salzman: ‘Local will be the new global,’” The Independent, Jan. 4, 2010
Marian “is not afraid to tell things as she sees them,” according to this profile. Topics she covers in this interview about trends in media for 2010 range from the future of print newspapers and commercial television to instant messaging (“here to stay”) and Rupert Murdoch (“‘I don’t know if it’s geography or personal pull but a man is making a market here and I don’t feel that influence,’ she says, referring to the way the British media breathlessly responded to The Times’s online paywall plans and the attempted resuscitation of MySpace.”).
“From Meltdown to Mobs, the Changing Shape of Things to Come,” Yorkshire Post, Dec. 29, 2009
Excerpt: “Predicting trends is not an exact science. However, for the last 15 years, Marian Salzman has earned something of a reputation for having her finger on the pulse long before anyone else.… With the last 12 months having shaken the foundations of everything we took for granted and with many people still facing an uncertain future as the New Year dawns, Marian knows that this year her thoughts on the year ahead will be more eagerly anticipated than normal.”
“Norwalk Exec Twitters Back to PR Firm,” The Stamford-Norwalk Advocate, Oct. 1, 2009
Excerpt: “ ‘I’m digitally addicted. I’m walking around with two [BlackBerrys]. I read my newspapers online, and I read a lot of blogs,’ said Salzman, 50, who contends that being tech-savvy keeps her young…. Recognizing Salzman’s reliance on social media, David Jones, global chief executive officer of Havas Worldwide and Euro RSCG, used it heavily to lure her to the company. ‘I tease him that it was the first time I was ever romanced for a job with Twitter and text messaging,’ Salzman said.… Salzman and Jones worked closely together in her previous time at Euro RSCG. ‘She was one of our real stars, generating valuable strategic insights for clients and uncovering trends that captured worldwide interest,’ he said in a statement.”
“Trend Spotter,” American Way, May 15, 2009
Excerpt: “Salzman, a Brown University graduate and a Harvard University–trained expert on sociology, business and emerging media, is a brain-tumor survivor and philanthropist who has built an ascendant career out of sensing the dramatic winds of change from the earliest gentle breezes.”
“30 Years of Tragedies and Triumphs,” “Sunday Morning,” Feb. 1, 2009
Excerpt: “ ‘Thirty years ago I was probably sitting in a dorm room, trying to figure out how to make my IBM Selectric correct the paper I was typing,’ said Marian Salzman, the chief trendspotter for the Porter Novelli Public Relations Agency. ‘And today, I’m figuring out how to Twitter off my BlackBerry while I’m using my second BlackBerry to place a conference call.’…Salzman says the past 30 years have not only brought us advances in phones, computers and other technology, but also in science: the Hubble space telescope, awareness of global warming, cloning (remember Dolly the sheep?), decoding of the human genome and many medical breakthroughs.”
“Blue Is New Green, Says Future Watcher Marian Salzman,” Sky.com, April 7, 2008
Excerpt: “A one-stop oracle, it is her job to predict the social trends—and thus marketing opportunities for her clients—just around the corner.”
“I Want Your Job: Trendspotter,” The Independent, Aug. 30, 2007
Excerpt: “Q. What do you actually do?
Marian: My job requires me to identify a social trend, put a commercial spin on it, and help brands use it. It’s about recognizing cultural patterns. So in 2003, all the hoopla over metrosexuals started as a trend for men wanting to find their softer side, then brands used it to sell them light beer. There’s a trend toward wanting to be seen as environmentally aware, so I might say that the palette for next year’s fashion will be blue, because it represents clean air.… My job isn’t as purely intellectual as sociology, nor is it as straightforward as brand marketing. Most of my motivations are commercial. I need to find that 2 percent of the population who will drive a product.”
“Interview: Marian Salzman,” The Guardian, Jan. 8, 2007
Excerpt: “Salzman radiates enough energy, one suspects, to power a small town and looks as if she has just stepped off the set of Sex and the City. She speaks at firecracker speed as she discusses popular culture and the geopolitical issues of our age, sprinkling her conversation with…buzzwords and phrases like ‘fertility soup,’ ‘boomerang parents’ and ‘Millennial Moms.’ ”
“Trendspotters: The Crystal-Ball Gazers,” The Independent, Jan. 2, 2006
Excerpt: “Salzman wrote college essays on the threat of terrorism, was challenged on ‘wiggers’ (white kids who want to be black) by Oprah, and identified the Sex and the City generation back in 1989. Coming from marketing, she claims a ‘gift for identifying what’s next’ and finding the ‘tweak’ that makes a brand stand out. Recent interests have been metrosexual man (she co-authored a book, The Future of Men) and forty-fication.”
“She’s the Bee’s Knees,” The Observer, June 29, 2003
Excerpt: “Her name is mentioned in the same breath as futurists Faith Popcorn and Christopher Sanderson of Future Laboratory. And Salzman certainly has a brilliant knack for spotting trends before they go mainstream—one commentator dubbed her ‘an octane-fuelled, 100-ideas-a-minute bunny.’ ”