MindShare Announces Major Company-Wide Restructuring
New Agency Model Emerges Based on Integration of Services, Content
Creation and “Value Exchange”
Philosophy
NEW YORK (Business Wire EON) April 17, 2008 --
MindShare today announced a global reengineering of its business
structure that streamlines the company’s
operations by integrating traditional and digital services and staff
into a new model, full-service marketing agency powered by best-in-class
media services.
The restructuring—the first since MindShare
was founded in 1997—was announced
simultaneously in New York and at the agency’s
worldwide headquarters in London by Chief Executive Officer Dominic
Proctor, Chief Strategy Officer Nick Emery, the principal architect of
the plan, and North American CEO Scott Neslund.
The goal of the restructuring is to create a new breed of marketing
services agency dedicated to developing fully integrated, media-neutral
business solutions for clients. The core idea is to move beyond the
realm of media solutions to fully integrate content creation and related
areas to realize the optimum value of exchange between brands,
consumers, and corporations to create competitive advantage for MindShare’s
clients.
“Brands are no longer driven by simple ideas
or ideals but by a series of exchanges between the brand and the consumer”
said Proctor. “We are re-inventing our form,
our thinking and our process, underpinning all that we do with digital
expertise, to be our clients’ lead business
partner in meeting the challenges this new landscape creates for them.”
Neslund and Emery stressed that there is now a pressing need for media
agencies to concentrate on the invention of intellectual property and
the integration of all marketing services, particularly in the area of
digital communications. To that end, the unit known as MindShare
Interaction will cease to exist in its current autonomous form; all
aspects of its function and responsibilities, as well as its entire
staff, will be woven into the overall MindShare organization.
“Content and integration are more important
than ever and, in fact, MindShare has been heading in that direction
over the past several years by making substantial investments in the
areas of research and production—not just
traditional media planning and buying,” said
Neslund. “In many respects these moves codify
what we’ve already been doing.”
The comprehensive restructuring integrates almost a dozen separate
agency units and disciplines into four new areas spanning all MindShare
services, creating an agency framework focused on collaboration and
consisting of integrated client teams. The four newly established areas
are Client Leadership, Business Planning, Invention, and The Exchange.
Briefly, here is what each will cover:
-
Client Leadership. A group formed of senior agency
executives who essentially serve as the primary client contacts for
each account. The group will be formed of Client Leaders who
will serve as the lead business partner to each client and be
responsible for setting the vision, developing the team work plan, and
building C-level relationships with the client. The role will also be
held accountable for P&L, performance & quality. Working together with
Client Leaders will be Operations Leaders, responsible for managing
the delivery of the vision and work plan as well as supervising client
team integration across the agency. Operations Leaders will also be
accountable for media client deliverables and managing staff KPIs,
performance appraisals, and career plans.
-
Business Planning. This group effectively
consolidates several MindShare units combining analytic and strategic
expertise to focus on solving real business issues for the CEO;
business planning rather than simply communications plan development.
Business Planning will weave deep consumer understanding and
communications planning with real-time business data-streams and
click-streams across digital platforms and search to clearly define a
client’s business opportunities and
marketing challenges and develop a “go to
market” strategy through a disciplined and
fact-based process.
-
Invention. Invention will be the hub of the agency’s
creative thinking, bringing together experts across disciplines
including entertainment creation, sponsorship creation and
amplification, retail, digital and strategic planning. Further to a
brief originated in collaboration with Business Planning, Invention
will define and develop a media neutral communications platform and
determine how it is manifested across the entire consumer journey,
vitally fusing content and contact planning. The role of this group
also is to oversee creative development and production of content
rooted in the platforms and journeys defined.
-
The Exchange. This group combines all
trading–digital and non-digital,
distribution leverage, inventory management, data management, and
arbitrage, and tactical planning. The Exchange will consult with
Invention during the creation of the architecture for the
communications strategy and will translate this into actionable plans,
being ultimately responsible to both the client and client leadership
team for stewarding and activating the brand vision in the real world,
maintaining budget and quality control, and overseeing short-term,
tactical actions.
Emery said the reorganization was in large part sparked by the expressed
needs of the agency’s client base as well the
agency’s future vision of the marketplace.
“There is a significant need right now among
clients for agency leadership,” he said. “They
want agencies to take the lead in learning about and applying digital
marketing, from retail to creating new revenue streams. They want
agencies to take the lead in the integration of diverse marketing
services. And they want agencies to take the lead in being more creative
with marketing ideas, fusing context with contact in real-time. We
intend to be the ones leading in all those areas in a structure focused
on client needs, not the usual self-serving tokenism. Simply put,
MindShare’s role is to maximize the value of
the exchange between brands, consumers, and corporations to create
competitive advantage for our clients.”
While the four new service areas represent the practical core of the new
agency model, MindShare is also introducing a new philosophy dubbed “The
Value Exchange” that represents the
conceptual core of the restructuring.
Neslund and Emery described The Value Exchange as a revolutionary
philosophy based on the agency’s belief that
a brand’s valuation is driven by the sum
total of exchanges between consumers and the brand, and that these
exchanges can be mapped and monitored in real-time; MindShare thereby
assimilating a NASDAQ for brands.
“Understanding this value exchange yields
diagnostic information to drive the formation of effective business
strategies for driving growth,” Neslund said. “These
strategies are, in turn, activated into powerful marketing ideas and
exciting communications programs that deliver tangible, measurable
results.”
The restructuring is a global undertaking impacting all of MindShare’s
97 offices in 67 countries. Implementation will begin in specified areas
of each office immediately and be phased into the overall operations of
each one over time. The full reorganization is expected to be completed
by year-end.
ABOUT MINDSHARE
MindShare is a global media and marketing services company with billings
in excess of $21.4 billion (source: RECMA). The network consists of 97
offices in 67 countries throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe, the
Middle East, and Asia Pacific. MindShare is a member of WPP, one of the
world’s leading communications services
groups, and is part of its GroupM Media Company.
ABOUT GROUPM
GroupM, the world’s leading full service
media investment management operation, was created by WPP Group to
oversee its assets in this sector. These assets include MindShare,
Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom and MAXUS. The focus of GroupM is the
intelligent application of volume and scale in trading, innovation and
quality of services, in order to bring benefit to clients and the
companies it operates.
For more information, please visit: www.groupm.com.
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