The M&E supply chain has become an AI-saturated echo chamber where meaningful product differentiation conveyed in substantive interactions with decision-makers is more essential but harder to achieve than ever.

As industry strategists specializing in market acceleration, Allan McLennan and Fred Dawson (M/D) have joined together to help vendors cut through the noise. Suppliers looking for better results from their commitments to product innovation can leverage M/D’s decades of executive-level industry engagement and problem-solving to develop and execute action plans that help to advance the decision-making process.



The Starting Point: Developing a Results-Based Acceleration Plan

In all cases, we have one goal: to help our clients achieve accurate, refined and targeted RESULTS.

M/D recognizes that in a competitive market like the crowded M&E supplier space spending on expert assistance absent results is not an option. Our starting point with every client is to work out an Acceleration Plan matched to budgetary realities while ensuring that, as much as possible, costs are tied to results.



The McLennan-Dawson Roadmap to Executing an Acceleration Plan

M/D works directly with clients to build an Acceleration Plan that taps into our expertise and hands-on assistance to whatever extent works for them at all stages of a success-optimized acceleration strategy, including:

• Competitive Research & Assessments of Market Demand – There’s a greater need than ever for an understanding of the full dimensions of market conditions and operational pain points that are driving demand for the solutions you provide. Gaining clarity on what’s under the hoods of competing solutions, you can pinpoint with great specificity why your solutions are superior to competitors’ offerings that may be couched in similar marketing terminology.



• Meaningful Engagement with Decision Makers – It’s to be expected that veteran strategists well known to their peers would be able to arrange high-level meetings for industry suppliers. But arranging quality time for substantive engagements with decision makers requires more than just a friendly acquaintance with key people. In order for principals to set aside time sufficient to give an idea a proper airing, they need to.be confident those proposing the vendor engagement can be relied on to bring things that matter to their attention. And the explanation tendered as to why the engagement is worthwhile needs to go succinctly to the heart of what matters to them.



• Collateral Development – We help customers create content that gets to the fine points of differentiation while conveying top-level messaging designed to resonate immediately with your targets. White papers, blogs, case studies, bylined articles and market presentations need to be themed and timed in an ongoing approach to focusing decision-makers’ attention on your products as the solutions they’re looking for. We offer writing and video scripting and production services as well as assistance helping client staff and others shape the messaging used in collateral development.

To learn how these capabilities can be brought to bear in a results-based Acceleration strategy, contact: Fred Dawson, dawson@ionsky.com .



Who We Are

Allan McLennan

Allan McLennan brings to the table over three decades of leadership in business management and strategic acceleration across the global Media & Entertainment landscape. In front-office positions and through the PADEM Media Group global consultancy he founded 18 years ago, McLennan has been deeply engaged with technology providers, studios, broadcasters and advertisers, many in the Fortune 500, whose businesses impact over a billion households worldwide.

Apple, Disney, Comcast and its NBCU and Sky units, Microsoft, Amazon Studios, Sony, BBC, Dreamworks, Spielberg/Amblin, Globecast, and Deluxe are among the firms served by McLennan and the PADEM Media Group. In his work as a corporate leader McLennan served most recently as president of 2G Digital Post, a leading postproduction/localization studio serving Hollywood’s motion picture and television producers. Some of his earlier roles included North American head of M&E at the global SI giant Atos, founding president and data leader of NASDAQ RENT, EVP and co-creator of streaming pioneer Media Station.

McLennan has also amassed creative media credits, including roles as co-founder of 3D multiuser worlds with Steven Spielberg, co-producer of a Sundance channel TV series, and co-author of Authority, a book on business strategy that rose to #4 on the WSJ Bestseller list. Notably, Authority provides an in-depth account of McLennan’s work as co-creator of five foundational patents for solutions enabling targeted advertising and personalization.

McLennan also serves as a contributing member of industry-leading organizations, including SMPTE, ATAS, HPA and PGA, and sits on the executive media board of directors at IET (Institute of Engineering & Technology, London) and on the board of trustees at CEI (Center of Education Innovation, NYC). With an MBA in International Strategy, McLennan is a guest lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and frequently appears as a speaker at IBC and other M&E forums worldwide.



Fred Dawson

Fred Dawson spearheads the UltraMedia Pipeline, the M&E industry’s resource for cutting-edge editorial and video coverage of next-generation developments tied to the emergence of real-time interactive streaming (RTIS) infrastructure. UM Pipeline is the latest iteration of Dawson’s work through Dawson Communications, the publishing and consulting enterprise he founded in 1990.

As described elsewhere, Dawson provides consulting services to a broad range of technology firms. In the publishing domain, UM Pipeline succeeds ScreenPlays Magazine, the publication Dawson founded in 2005 and ran over a 16-year span to track the emergence and growth of the OTT sector.

Dawson has long played a lead role in driving awareness and industry commitment to the development of market-moving technology advances. Early in his career he became known as a champion for the cable industry’s use of amplitude-modulated optics, which became the foundation for the hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network. Through the Cable-Telco Report he was the first industry journalist to cover MPEG video compression, which led to the digitization of TV, and was first to report on cable and DSL modems, which brought broadband internet services to life.

Prior to ScreenPlays, Dawson produced the industry newsletters Cable-Telco Report, DBS Report and Broadband Commerce & Technology and served as vice president of editorial at Virgo Publishing, editorial director for industry publications at Cahners and editor-in-chief at Cablevision Magazine. He is also the author of Optimizing the Future with Next-Generation DOCSIS, a book on cable broadband technology published by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers.