ChasNote

Among yesterday’s coverage of FM’s Series C financing was this post by Avenue A’s SVP for global media Jeff Lanctot, including his take on working with FM.

“I can say that FM has established a nice track record with Avenue A | Razorfish (my employer) over the last several quarters. Looking back to 2007, we spent nearly 4X more with FM in the second half of the year than we did in the first half. In the first quarter of 2008, our spend with FM matched all of calendar year 2007. Granted, FM started from a small base in 2007, but this kind of growth isn’t common. Looking at the reasons for their success, I think FM has done three things very well:

“1. They are clear about what they do. They don’t pretend to be an ad network. In this interview with Rafat, John says “We don’t view ourselves as an ad network…ad networks are our cousins. We have a portfolio of brands that we represent and partner with, so we consider ourselves a digital media and publishing company. Our next phase is to help those brands grow.” That’s smart positioning, because I don’t think there is room for many more ad networks.

“2. They treat every campaign as a unique opportunity. The FM team is quite genuine about providing custom solutions that work for readers, authors and advertisers. This tends to be a labor-intensive approach, so I’m not sure how well it scales. But marketers love thoughtful, integrated, on-brand ideas. FM has lots of them.”

You’ll have to visit Jeff’s site to get his third point.

Disclosure: Jeff is a pal, a client and — now more than ever — a handsome and powerful man.