Practice Leader, Peggy Mitchell-King:

Peggy brings a strong mix of strategic and tactical marketing, advertising and consulting experience to Aquent Consulting where she focuses on client/agency marketing “best practice” agency selection and cost optimization. Her assignment experience includes: 1) work practices and processes; 2) agency staffing and compensation benchmarking; 3) client and agency organizational structure and skill sets; 4) client/agency contracts; 5) agency evaluation and pay-for-performance programs; and, 6) agency screening, review and selection.

Peggy’s client experience spans all industries and types of agencies. Her consulting clients have included Bristol Myers Squibb, UCB, Colgate, Genworth Financial, Starwood Hotels, Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC, Nissan, Toyota, VW/Audi, MasterCard, Eli Lilly, New York Life, Mattel, McDonald’s, Hershey, Philips Electronics, Intel, IBM, Visa, Shell, Unilever, JCPenney, Olive Garden, Nautica, American Express and Seagram. During her assignments Peggy worked with all global agency networks and their lead advertising agencies (e.g., O&M, Y&R, BBDO, McCann Erickson, Grey, JWT, DDB) as well as network and independent agencies in the areas of advertising, promotions, B2B, diversity/ethnic, direct response, PR, identity/branding, web/interactive, media planning and buying, DRTV, and medical/pharmaceutical.

Peggy spent 20 years at the American Express Company in the marketing, communications, and advertising creative and media areas, where she was VP - Global Advertising and Branding, where her responsibilities included agency contract management.

Peggy has a BA from Vassar College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, a BSLA from CCNY in urban planning, and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business with a concentration in marketing. 

Ed Poole, Senior Consultant:

Ed Poole has been a consultant and business strategist for more than 18 years providing innovative and high-value solutions to clients who wish to improve their business processes, implement or maintain best practices, and realize cost savings based on forward-looking insight.

Ed brings experience in communications, marketing and research from a variety of consulting, corporate and agency settings. Ed’s clients have included the City of Boston, Condé Nast, Clairol, EMI Entertainment, GE Financial Services, Arcadia Windpower, HUGHES Network Services, Ernst & Young, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, JP Morgan, MTV, IBM, MasterCard, Shell, and Samsung.

In addition to extensive experience as a management and marketing services consultant, Ed has managed client/agency relationships from both the client and agency perspectives providing a breadth of understanding of the issues involved in ensuring the success of these critical relationships.

Prior to joining Aquent, Ed was a Senior Consultant with Morgan Anderson Consulting focusing on global agency relationship costs benchmarking, below-the-line marketing services benchmarking, and agency relationship review/renewal analysis.

Ed attended Harvard College. 

Aquent Consulting has a unique mix of expertise, experience, and proprietary knowledge in marketing planning, creative, production, product, strategy, sales, channel development, IT, systems, agency management, process reengineering, and marketing analytics.

We understand the marketing and creative process, the consumer challenge, the techniques and tools of execution, and industry “best practices.”

We have extensive client and agency experience.

We have conducted over 500 agency assessments, screenings and reviews. 

Agency compensation benchmarking - economics and deliverables based

Agency preferred vendor screening and agency election

Organizational structure and staffing mix

Client/agency work process and relationship improvement

Agency evaluation and pay-for-performance plans