Alan McLarty, who until his death was managing director of Mindshare (the media agency formerly known as Initiative Lagos), is another great lost that befall the advertising media industry. Alan passed on early morning last week after what appears to have been a brief illness.
Alan came to Nigeria from South Africa in 2003 to join Lowe Lintas as Media Director from where he went on to establish the pioneer agency’s spin-off media independent, Initiative in 2004. A thorough bred professional in media strategy and planning, Alan has been involved in the media business for close to 4 decades.
Prior to joining Lowe Lintas and Initiative, he was consulting for HerdBuoys McCann-Erickson, Optimedia and Capro in South Africa. Before this he launched and ran Universal McCann in South Africa. His experience trail includes time at McCann-Erickson (twice), Whitehouse (Creative Hot Shop), O&M, Campbell Edwald, Adpro (Creative Hot Shop), BBDO, JWT and the Cape Argus Newspaper.
On the client-side his experience includes stints at Unilever, SAB (Amstel, Heineken), General Motors, Woolworths, Vodacom, McDonalds, Michelin, Gillette, Motorola, L’oreal, Smirnoff, J&B, Chivas Regal, Captain Morgan, Olmeca Tequila.
He has worked with the industry currency, the AMPS Media research data since 1975 and his experience dates back to the days of manual data analysis and spreads to the introduction of Peoplemeters using the latest Telmar and Transmit suites of software.
He continuously contributes to training-in-house for clients and through industry associations and was a very active member of the Media Independent Association of Nigeria (MIPAN).
In Nigeria, he has successfully led the media agency from its inception winning big accounts like Friesland, Unilever, Ovaltine, Telkom, Nigerian Breweries and many more. He recently concluded the agency’s affiliation with the Mindshare global network necessitating the company’s change of name from Initiative to Sharemind.
He will be greatly missed by diverse sections of the ad industry in Nigeria and South Africa including professional colleagues, media owners and clients.
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