About
Meet the founder.
Founder Tom Barnes · radio, then the internet · Atlanta, since 1999
FounderAtlanta, GAEst. 1999
It started in radio — researching audiences so program directors could stop guessing what listeners wanted. When the internet arrived, our founder saw it early for what it was: the biggest audience-research instrument ever built. Mediathink has run on that idea since 1999.
Since then the work has spanned music, entertainment, radio, cable, internet, and telecom — AT&T, CBS, Time Warner, Microsoft, Diageo — and founder-led companies where every dollar counts for more. When Groove was absorbed into Microsoft, Mediathink was one of the few outside vendors kept on through the migration. Along the way: Future Present, a book on reading the future in present evidence; and articles for MarketingProfs. Each year he volunteers for the student business plan competition at Babson College, and he has volunteered at Georgia Tech.
A colleague at Atlantic Records once nicknamed him ‘Nostrathomas.’ He’d be flattered, except the same guy also calls him ‘Timmy.’
Marketing means uncovering what people want and communicating it to them memorably. That’s the opposite of what most people think it is — persuading people to want what you’re selling. The first is measurable. The second is expensive.