OBIT: Jon Schneider EVP, Director of Client Service for New York Office of MRM Worldwide
OBIT: Jon Schneider EVP, Director of Client Service for New York Office of MRM Worldwide
NEW YORK—(March 24, 2009)–Jon Schneider, EVP, Director of Client Service for the flagship office of MRM Worldwide, died suddenly on Sunday, March 22, at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., his family confirmed.
He was 52 years old.
Schneider, a brand advertising and digital/direct marketing veteran, joined MRM Worldwide in April 2006, and was a key and respected member of the agency’s executive leadership team.
Besides managing client services for the New York agency’s clients–which include MasterCard, Intel, ExxonMobil, Bertolli, Nikon, Verizon and the U.S. Army–Schneider was also instrumental in the agency’s win of the Diageo brands, Crown Royal and Captain Morgan, in late 2008, and he was the account lead on the business. He was also leading efforts on a new pharmaceutical practice at the agency.
Schneider joined MRM from Digitas in New York, where he had been Vice President, Marketing Director, working on Virgin Mobile and the B2B account for American Express.
“Jon and I go back a long way,” said MRM Worldwide CEO Reuben Hendell, who worked with Schneider for many years when the two were at Digitas. “I’ll miss his clear-eyed, no-nonsense assessments, which were more often than not delivered with warmth and his signature wry humor. I’m proud to say that over the years he became a friend in addition to a trusted colleague, and I think I speak for the entire agency and the clients that have gotten to know Jon, in saying that he will be very sorely missed. Our hearts and prayers are with his family.”
MRM New York managing director Corey Mitchell informed the agency of Schneider’s passing in an email on Monday morning, saying: “Jon’s warmth, wonderful nature, humor and wit will be missed, and his sudden death is a reminder of how short and precious life is.”
Prior to MRM, Jon spent nearly eight years at Digitas, where he led eCRM and digital marketing efforts for the wireless business (Cingular and Virgin Mobile at different times), and financial services accounts (American Express, Dunn & Bradstreet).
He was a 20-plus-year veteran of acquisition and relationship marketing in the telecom, technology, retail and financial services categories across both B2B and B2C brands.
Jon’s background included a solid foundation in brand advertising on the accounts of Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Nestlé, as well as classic direct marketing (aka “mail order”) in the publishing industry. His other advertising agency experience included executive positions at Wunderman, Ogilvy & Mather Direct, JWT and Grey.
Schneider’s advertising career began in 1979 at Pearson, PLC: Simon & Schuster/Prentice Hall, where he started as a copywriter and worked his way up by 1985 to Software Marketing Manager in the publishing house’s General Reference group.
From 1985 to 1988, he worked at Grey as an Account Executive on the General Foods and Procter & Gamble accounts and then spent one year at JWT as a Senior Account Executive on the Nestlé business on confection brands.
Schneider joined Ogilvy & Mather Direct in 1991 and began working in a category that would become one of his specialties—telecom—on AT&T’s Residential Long-Distance Services account. In a second stint at Chapman Direct Advertising from 1993 to 1997, Schneider worked on the fledgling Internet company, Prodigy, and on the Digital Equipment Corp. account.
His time as an Account Director at Wunderman, Cato, Johnson–a division of Young & Rubicam, Inc.–returned Schneider to the AT&T account from 1997 to 1998, this time in database marketing for the client’s Business Communications Services. He also worked on AT&T business at Digitas, which he joined in 1998.
Jon Schneider was born in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Feb. 11, 1957, and grew up in the Westchester County town of Larchmont, N.Y. He attended Fordham Preparatory school in The Bronx and was an alumnus of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
He is survived by his wife, Rosemary, two brothers, Tom and Russ, a sister, Sue, and 20 nieces and nephews.
Arrangements are as follows:
A wake will be held on Thursday, March 26 at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, 1076 Madison Avenue at 81st Street in New York City, from 2-5 p.m. and from 7-9 p.m. A funeral service will take place at the chapel on Friday, March 27 at 11:30 a.m.