MDA Corporate Marketing is the official entity behind Michael D. Ares and the strategic communications services he provides to CEOs, C-suite executives, university faculty, administrators and others for whom the visibility and impact of their reputations in the minds of key target audiences matters…a lot.

A seasoned corporate communications expert for more than 35 years, MDA currently focuses on thought leadership positioning and ghostwriting – helping leaders identify and present their unique insight and expertise in clear, concise and compelling op-eds, bylines, keynote speeches and position papers of all types. 

MDA’s individualized counsel and hands-on writing services have helped establish and grow the professional reputations of successful Silicon Valley start-up founders, NYSE CEOs and eminent scholars at major universities in fields ranging from finance and investment regulations to technology, sustainability, marketing and new business formation.

Ø Op-Ed Writing and Placement

Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor offer a unique opportunity for leaders to present their well-formed, experience-backed opinion and insight virtually unadulterated by reporters or news editors. While difficult to craft and hard to place, op-eds in leading business and higher education media nevertheless remain the gold standard in generating reach and driving effectiveness.

Ø Executive Speechwriting

While opportunities to deliver keynote speeches at industry, company and university events are less frequent, they represent perhaps the second most effective forum to deliver key messages and insight. Carefully crafted keynote speeches delivered in person can go a long way toward establishing a strong reputation and generate valuable “content” that can be leveraged across multiple digital channels.

Ø Bylines, Blogs and Position Papers

Strategically selected and positioned bylines, blogs and position papers offer opportunities to build upon an emerging professional reputation by highlighting key industry, market or curricula issues. Like op-eds, they enable the author to speak directly in their own voice on issues that matter to them most and can be “merchandized” in numerous ways.

Any successful reputation-building engagement begins with two key elements that lay the strong foundation necessary for an effective initiative.

Ø S.W.O.T. Analyses

The key to any reputation-building initiative is to first discover and present the current status of an individual’s reputation and standing as it pertains to the critical issues facing audiences and markets that matter most to their success. A structured and proven Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats assessment – whether simply fundamental or more extensive – is the key to getting off to a good start and can be accomplished relatively quickly.

Ø Key Message Development

Drawing upon the findings of even a brief S.W.O.T. analysis, key messages become the critical components of the reputation-building effort. Key messages are a handful of clear, concise and compelling statements of opinion backed by facts that capture the unique value and promise of an individual’s insight and expertise. Key messages are supplemented with three-to-four sub-messages that expand upon each primary message to provide additional clarity.

While these may appear onerous and time consuming, they aren’t at all – not the way I conduct them. Having walked literally hundreds of individuals through these two preliminary steps, they always seem to find it worthwhile and are surprised at how quickly we are able to move into actual writing.