Founded on the principle that better media builds better brands. And better brands can build a better world.
Meet Doug
Ray Media Advisory founder, Doug Ray, is probably best known for his tenure leading Carat as both its US CEO and global president. Under his leadership, Carat more than doubled its revenue, winning clients such as Disney, General Motors, Macy’s, Danone, Sony Playstation and GoPro, among others. Carat also saw an unprecedentedly high level of staff retention, due in part to a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, pro bono work and talent recognition programs. This success led to a number of industry accolades for Doug and the agency, including Media Executive of the Year (Adweek), Media Maven (AdAge), Media Agency of the Year (AdAge, Adweek, MediaPost), Legend & Leader (MediaVillage) and Agency Innovator (Internationalist).
Approach
Doug is a broad strategic thinker widely-recognized for his plain-spoken, empathetic and collaborative approach. He is a catalyst for business change, guiding clients, partners and colleagues alike. These qualities helped Doug catapult Carat, Aegis Media, and eventually, dentsu Media into leading, global, powerhouse agencies.
Every engagement with Ray Media Advisory is grounded in these principles:
Optimization
Collaboration with RMA means you get an unbiased, independent perspective to personalize and optimize solutions specific to each client’s needs.
Transformation
Whether it means transforming existing capabilities, innovating new solutions, or using predictive knowledge to accelerate growth, RMA will help you change as fast as the media around you.
Clarification
Doug Ray’s depth and breadth of experience across all media sectors allows RMA to sharpen your focus and help reveal more opportunities in media.
Career Highlights
Doug Ray’s career is grounded in a notable series of firsts. When Doug started his professional marketing and advertising career at creative hot shop Ammirati & Puris, Ad Age referred to him as “the next breed of media planner”. He quickly became one of its youngest vice presidents. Next, as partner at DiMassimo Brand Advertising, Doug worked on numerous early Internet companies, including the launches of Hotwire.com, Kinkos.com, and Kozmo.com.
Doug’s aptitude for meeting challenges around digital data led to his appointment as dentsu’s first U.S. president of product and innovation. This appointment coincided with dentsu’s acquisition of Merkle, which produced industry-leading products that propelled dentsu’s media agencies to the forefront of the digital age.
More recently, Doug had the opportunity to launch and lead dentsu Media in the Americas. Under his leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic, dentsu Media reached and then exceeded its business targets. During the COVID lockdown, Doug and his team quickly spotted the opportunity in gaming’s exponential expansion. In response, they developed and launched dentsu’s first global gaming unit.
That same year, Doug shared an idea with a couple of influential clients along with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB). This led to production of a new, original radio show and podcast series: More Than That with Gia Peppers. To date, this show has won numerous awards and generated more than $14 million in additional revenue for Black-owned media and production companies.
In addition to launching Ray Media Advisory, Doug is also sought-after speaker, participating on or moderating panels and presenting at global industry events such as Cannes Lions, 4A’s Media Conference, Advertising Week, DVAA Video Everywhere Summit, DMEXCO and Festival of Media.
Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Doug graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business. He now lives between his home in Narrowsburg and New York City.
