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Tag: Kelly Clark

  • Group M global CEO Kelly Clark Steps down

    Group M global CEO Kelly Clark Steps down

    MUMBAI: As reported by The Drum, Group M global chief executive officer Kelly Clark has resigned from his post after serving it for three years. He, reportedly, will be replaced by current Group M agency Essence chief executive officer Christian Juhl.

    The agency is still finding a replacement for Juhl.

    Clark has led the WPP media giant globally since October 2016 and before that ran its North America and European operations. He has served exclusively in WPP agencies since joining its JWT advertising firm as a media director in New York in 1988.

    From there, Clark moved to Mindshare where he held chief exec roles in Asia Pacific and the UK and he also enjoyed a four-year spell in charge of Maxus before taking the reins at Group M.

  • Rob Norman quits GroupM

    Rob Norman quits GroupM

    MUMBAI: GroupM’s global chief digital officer Rob Norman has decided to retire from his full-time role effective January 2018. Hewill remain an advisor to GroupM and its clients, with a reduced workload that allows him more time to pursue personal interests.

    Norman decided to call it quits after giving over 31 years of his life to CIA, MEC and GroupM.

    GroupM global CEO Kelly Clark says, “Happily, this is not goodbye. We thank Rob for his loyal service and for continuing to share his passion and vision for this business as GroupM and the industry continue to evolve. Rob has been a fantastic partner to our clients, our people and our company, so I’m delighted that he will continue in an advisory capacity.”

    On his exit, Norman says, “GroupM, WPP and before that CIA, have been my work, my life and almost always my pleasure. My friends in the business know that I’ve become very attached to a rural life and understand that after 31 years, it’s time to do other things. It’s a curiosity of our business that few people get to step back, yet stay involved; I’m honoured that GroupM is allowing me to do exactly that.”

  • WPP’s merged MEC and Maxus entity to be called Wavemaker

    WPP’s merged MEC and Maxus entity to be called Wavemaker

    MUMBAI: The new billion-dollar revenue, media, content and technology agency to be created from the merger of MEC and Maxus will be named ‘Wavemaker.’

    The brand, along with a new visual identity, will go live locally as the merger completes in each country, to be finalised by January 2018. Wavemaker will have offices in 90 countries and over 8,500 employees. Major global clients include L’Oreal, Vodafone, Marriott, Colgate-Palmolive and Paramount.

    Making waves happens when media, content and technology come together – activating against our unrivalled purchase journey understanding for the clients we represent.

    The brand mark Wavemaker reflects the agency’s heritage, born from WPP and GroupM.

    MEC and Wavemaker’s global CEO Tim Castree, said: “Our purpose is to provide advertisers with the power to transform and grow their business through our Purchase Journey obsession; and importantly to do this through the integration of Purchase Journey insights and data with [m]PLATFORM, GroupM’s proprietary global audience technology. Our Wavemaker brand and positioning is a compelling manifestation of that purpose.”

    GroupM global CEO Kelly Clark added: “Wavemaker is an exciting new global agency brand with a powerful proposition for clients. Tim and his team have the full support of GroupM’s scale, resources and expertise.”

  • Maxus’ Lindsay Pattison to lead change initiatives across GroupM

    MUMBAI: GroupM, the world’s leading media investment group, today announced the appointment of Lindsay Pattison as Chief Transformation Officer (CTO). She will lead change initiatives across GroupM and its agencies, and with other WPP companies will create tailored and flexible models that serve clients better in the extremely competitive business environment.

    Pattison will lead a number of change programs to support group and agency structures, talent and leadership development, culture and diversity, as well as WPP’s horizontality strategy. She remains a member of GroupM’s global executive committee, reporting to Kelly Clark, global CEO of GroupM. Pattison also continues as CEO of GroupM agency Maxus and will perform both roles.

    In her new role, Pattison will also focus on senior talent development to ensure GroupM and its agencies have a strong bench of diverse leaders who can help clients win in a very challenging marketing landscape. She will support WPP’s horizontality strategy by helping deliver the best of GroupM to key clients, together with other WPP companies, regardless of the client’s entry point to the group.

    “Clients need us to think differently and work smarter,” said Clark. “Lindsay will help us deliver on those challenges. I’ve worked with her for many years. She’s a force, and holds the respect of clients and colleagues. She will make a huge impact with her smarts, energy and warmth.”

    WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell said: “GroupM and its agencies are key to WPP’s horizontality strategy. Lindsay will play a crucial role in accelerating our delivery of new and innovative service structures for clients.”

    Pattison was named global CEO of Maxus in October 2014. She was previously Global Chief Strategy Officer and UK CEO for Maxus during a period in which it was the fastest-growing media agency worldwide. Her prior experience includes roles at Young and Rubicam, PHD Media and Sony Ericsson. Lindsay was named to Ad Age’s 2015 class of Women to Watch and served two terms on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council focused on the Future of Media. In 2016, she launched ‘Walk the Talk,’ an initiative to help senior women at Maxus to thrive and progress in their career, a program now being adopted globally by WPP.

    “When we look at the broader business context, the transformation we are experiencing is profound,” Pattison said. “The WEF calls it the ‘fourth industrial revolution,’ a technological revolution and one that requires two key skills to succeed: collaboration and agility. New thinking is required across the board, and I’m delighted to take on this new transformation role.”

  • GroupM launches Motion Content Group to meet demand for new economic models

    MUMBAI: GroupM, the world’s leading media investment group, today announced the launch of Motion Content Group (Motion), a new global content investment and rights management company, to meet the ever-growing market demand for new economic models for premium content across the entertainment and media marketplace.

    Motion will invest and partner with the world’s leading talent, producers and distributors to fund, develop, produce and distribute premium content. It will also consolidate and diversify GroupM’s content investments and operations to-date, as well as utilize GroupM’s & WPP’s worldwide network of relationships and content expertise for scale and competitive advantage.

    Motion also supports WPP’s ongoing strategic focus and investments into content, which has seen notable strategic investments into companies such as Imagine Entertainment (24, EMPIRE), The Weinstein Company (DJANGO UNCHAINED, THE KING’S SPEECH), Media Rights Capital (HOUSE OF CARDS, 22 JUMP STREET), MediaPro (MIDNIGHT IN PARIS) and All Def Digital, Russell Simmons’ digital venture.

    Richard Foster, currently the head of GroupM Entertainment, has been appointed CEO of Motion Content Group, which will be headquartered in London and Los Angeles. Motion incorporates GroupM Entertainment’s team and resources, and the full slate of programs it has partnered to develop and produce.

    Award-winning content funded by GroupM Entertainment has been distributed into markets around the world through partnerships with over 100 leading producers and more than 20 of the world’s leading distribution companies. Motion invests its own funds into content deals and partnerships and is therefore a separate but complimentary offering to the substantial amount of branded content work undertaken by GroupM’s agencies on behalf of their clients.

    Motion’s global reach, investments and partnerships will help support the editorial ambitions and commercial requirements of producers, networks and platforms, in order to help drive contextually safe, high-quality environments for advertisers.

    “With new content companies such as Netflix and Amazon growing rapidly, the competition for premium content is heating up across the globe. WPP is investing in Motion Content Group to strengthen our content creation and distribution capabilities, to help meet evolving viewer needs, and to help advertisers continue to reach consumers in high quality content environments,” said Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP.

    Kelly Clark, GroupM CEO, said, “We have always used our global scale and reach to find innovative approaches that strengthen the media ecosystem for advertisers and media partners alike. Motion is a major commitment by GroupM to expand on these efforts.”

    Richard Foster, CEO, Motion Content Group said, “Our objective is to help create and support editorially and commercially vibrant premium content for the benefit of our content partners and advertisers. We will achieve this by continuing to invest into the content industry and lead the development of new models, commercial content structures and partnerships with media networks, platforms, talent, producers, and distributors.”

  • GroupM’s new suite [m]Platform to make media planning flexible

    GroupM’s new suite [m]Platform to make media planning flexible

    MUMBAI: GroupM has launched an advanced technology suite of flexible media planning applications, data analytics and digital services titled [m]Platform. The platform will improve advertisers’ ability to use audience-defining insights from hundreds of data sources to find and communicate with their consumers across all media.

    Brian Gleason, most recently the global CEO of Xaxis, has been named the CEO of [m]Platform. He will lead the continuous development of market-leading technology to ingest any data important to identifying a client’s audiences and applications that efficiently engage them on any platform.

    The connected platform ensures insights carry through the whole communications process: “Marketers are under tremendous pressure to deliver results from media investments. This flexible Platform approach enables us to focus US$7 billion worth of investments we’ve made in data and technology over 10 years to help them realize a marketplace advantage,” said GroupM Global CEO Kelly Clark. “Our agencies will now have deeper consumer insights and the most robust technology in the market.”

    [m]Platform makes it possible for media planners at GroupM agencies to use the most detailed consumer data to achieve results for their clients. It is supported by a team of data scientists, technologists and digital practitioners from across GroupM specialist companies and Xaxis. [m]Platform unifies data analytics and digital services including search, social, mobile, digital ad operations and programmatic into one team delivering a completely open and fully transparent data and technology architecture.

    [m]Platform connects wide-ranging WPP data sources across Kantar and Wunderman; third-party data providers; GroupM’s data from unique agreements with global media partners; and clients’ own data when they choose. This allows the creation of the most complete consumer profiles within a brand’s target audience, including rich demographics, technology usage, behavioral insights, purchase history, location data and more (varies by region according to local regulations).

    [m]Core is the first full-stack audience intelligence Platform combining cross-Platform data (display, mobile, video, offline CRM, apps, etc.) for a singular consumer identifier, [m]ID.[m]Insights is the largest audience-centric media planning tool with cross-channel planning, creative workflow management, unified audience frequency capping and location-based and in- demo reach[m]Analytics marries online and offline campaign-level data to[m]ID to enable analytics, attribution and optimization[m]Report merges data into a single, intuitive visualization dashboard with actionable.

    GroupM is building a global organization to support [m]Platform. Four regional presidents will report to Gleason. Recently named the president of Platform Services in North America, Phil Cowdell, is now the president of [m]Platform, North America. Lucas Mentasti has been named the president, [m]Platform, LATAM. Presidents in EMEA and APAC will be named shortly. Also on the [m]Platform global leadership team is COO Nicolle Pangis, chief strategy officer Jack Smith, and CTO Bob Hammond.

    Pan-regional collaboration will ensure consistent information and experience to global clients, but with the bespoke strategic point of view of their selected GroupM agency.

  • GroupM’s new suite [m]Platform to make media planning flexible

    GroupM’s new suite [m]Platform to make media planning flexible

    MUMBAI: GroupM has launched an advanced technology suite of flexible media planning applications, data analytics and digital services titled [m]Platform. The platform will improve advertisers’ ability to use audience-defining insights from hundreds of data sources to find and communicate with their consumers across all media.

    Brian Gleason, most recently the global CEO of Xaxis, has been named the CEO of [m]Platform. He will lead the continuous development of market-leading technology to ingest any data important to identifying a client’s audiences and applications that efficiently engage them on any platform.

    The connected platform ensures insights carry through the whole communications process: “Marketers are under tremendous pressure to deliver results from media investments. This flexible Platform approach enables us to focus US$7 billion worth of investments we’ve made in data and technology over 10 years to help them realize a marketplace advantage,” said GroupM Global CEO Kelly Clark. “Our agencies will now have deeper consumer insights and the most robust technology in the market.”

    [m]Platform makes it possible for media planners at GroupM agencies to use the most detailed consumer data to achieve results for their clients. It is supported by a team of data scientists, technologists and digital practitioners from across GroupM specialist companies and Xaxis. [m]Platform unifies data analytics and digital services including search, social, mobile, digital ad operations and programmatic into one team delivering a completely open and fully transparent data and technology architecture.

    [m]Platform connects wide-ranging WPP data sources across Kantar and Wunderman; third-party data providers; GroupM’s data from unique agreements with global media partners; and clients’ own data when they choose. This allows the creation of the most complete consumer profiles within a brand’s target audience, including rich demographics, technology usage, behavioral insights, purchase history, location data and more (varies by region according to local regulations).

    [m]Core is the first full-stack audience intelligence Platform combining cross-Platform data (display, mobile, video, offline CRM, apps, etc.) for a singular consumer identifier, [m]ID.[m]Insights is the largest audience-centric media planning tool with cross-channel planning, creative workflow management, unified audience frequency capping and location-based and in- demo reach[m]Analytics marries online and offline campaign-level data to[m]ID to enable analytics, attribution and optimization[m]Report merges data into a single, intuitive visualization dashboard with actionable.

    GroupM is building a global organization to support [m]Platform. Four regional presidents will report to Gleason. Recently named the president of Platform Services in North America, Phil Cowdell, is now the president of [m]Platform, North America. Lucas Mentasti has been named the president, [m]Platform, LATAM. Presidents in EMEA and APAC will be named shortly. Also on the [m]Platform global leadership team is COO Nicolle Pangis, chief strategy officer Jack Smith, and CTO Bob Hammond.

    Pan-regional collaboration will ensure consistent information and experience to global clients, but with the bespoke strategic point of view of their selected GroupM agency.

  • GroupM names Brian Lesser as CEO, North America

    GroupM names Brian Lesser as CEO, North America

    MUMBAI: WPP’s GroupM has appointed Brian Lesser as CEO for business in the US and Canada.

     

    Lesser was previously Xaxis global CEO. He succeeds Kelly Clark, who will be transitioning to a new advisory role focused on strategic initiatives with clients and specialty businesses over the coming months.

     

    With this, Brian Gleason will succeed Lesser as Xaxis global CEO.

     

    In concert with these changes, GroupM global chief digital officer Rob Norman adds the position of chairman, North America to his responsibilities.

     

    The new roles for the two executives reflect GroupM’s certainty that the future of media-driven marketing is inextricably tied to data and technology. Key investments and partnerships over the past several years that support this positioning include WPP’s investments in comScore and AppNexus; GroupM’s and Kantar Media’s partnership with Rentrak; more recent alliances with BuzzFeed and Networked Insights; introduction of the industry’s first data management platform and first programmatic audience platform; introduction of Modi Media, the first fully-formed advanced TV specialty business delivering addressable TV ads at scale; and numerous progressive positions on digital ad viewability and measurement that are focused on raising the bar for effectiveness and trading currency.

     

    While driving advancement in North America, Lesser and Norman also each continue serving on GroupM’s global executive committee, led by GroupM global president Dominic Proctor and global chairman Irwin Gotlieb.

     

    “Brian will be a huge part of our future and his appointment reflects our values and ambition, as well as WPP’s drive to achieve 40-45% of revenues from digital in five years. Our future is being built on tech, data, talent and scale.  Brian absolutely gets that and is perfectly suited to help us shape that future to best serve advertisers.  We’re very fortunate to have him leading our business in the world’s biggest market,” said Proctor.

     

    “GroupM has continuously evolved with clients through major shifts in the media landscape and consumer behavior with data and technology having always been part of the value proposition. GroupM has challenged convention and forced dialogue on important issues to help clients be more successful. I’m humbled and grateful to have an opportunity to help continue this legacy at this time when complexity is more profound than ever,” added Lesser.

     

    “This is an exciting time for our company. We have many successes to count and new marketplace challenges to conquer, but above all, we have the strength of our agency brands, our specialist enterprises and our increasing differentiation in the management and application of data that leave us exceptionally well-positioned for the future. I’m energized by the road ahead and excited to work with Brian and our colleagues on the executive committee for the next chapter,” said Norman.

  • GroupM appoints Steve Williams as Maxus North America CEO

    GroupM appoints Steve Williams as Maxus North America CEO

    MUMBAI: Maxus has appointed Steve Williams as chief executive officer North America. The announcement was made by Maxus Global CEO Vikram Sakhuja. Williams will be based in New York and he will join Maxus on 1 June. He will report to Sakhuja and to GroupM North America CEO Kelly Clark.

     

    Williams is currently president of PHD New York, a position he has held for the last two years. He was previously CEO of OMD Group in the UK, where he led a team of 550 professionals.

     

    “Steve has a great reputation as a leader and a client partner,” said Sakhuja. “He has a terrific track record of success in both the UK and the US, and he is a perfect fit for the ambitious Maxus culture.”

     

    “We are confident that Steve will help us take Maxus to a new level,” said Clark. “I know from competing against Steve that he can be a very potent force, so I’m delighted he’s now on our team.”

     “I am excited to be joining Maxus and GroupM. I am thankful for the incredible journey with Omnicom Media Group, but I’m now looking forward to a new journey with Maxus, who are uniquely positioned to grow locally and globally. I love the team’s energy and ambition,” mentioned Williams.

  • GroupM launches new advanced television unit

    GroupM launches new advanced television unit

    MUMBAI: GroupM today announced the launch of a new innovative TV business unit that will offer clients superior targeting and engagement capabilities in what has become a technology driven, data fused, addressable media environment.

    The announcement was made by GroupM North America CEO Kelly Clark, who said the unit will be called Modi Media and will be led by Michael Bologna, GroupM’s Director of Emerging Communications. Bologna’s appointment as President of Modi Media is effective immediately, and his previous role is being folded into his new position.

    “We are preparing for a world of media consumption and advertising message delivery that is radically different from what we see today,” Clark said in making the announcement. “Data and technology are driving enormous change in the structure and the economics of the television business, and it’s critical that we are ready to help clients navigate the new landscape. Modi Media will develop powerful advanced TV solutions for advertisers.” Clark said Modi (pronounced “Mo-Dee”) will offer solutions that provide advanced targeting, less waste, improved ROI, and deeper engagement.

     Specifically, the unit will cover four practices:

    DIGITAL CONTENT DISTRIBUTION: Focused on the promotion of sale or rental of digitally distributed films across cable and satellite platforms and through connected devices (iTunes, Xbox, Amazon, Vudu).

    ADDRESSABLE TV: Addressable television is the ability to send a TV commercial to a specific household based on a brand’s actual target profile. Targeting criteria can include income, advanced demography, and purchase behavior, among others. Ads are served only to the homes that fit the specified target criteria. The current reach potential of addressable TV is 40 million TV homes across the US, and is expected to grow significantly.

    HYPER-LOCAL TV: Hyper-local television is the ability to insert a TV commercial directly to a specific zone or zip code based on geographic skews, sales data, trading radius etc. This helps focus clients’ TV advertising in highly concentrated local neighborhoods without having to buy an entire market, thereby reducing waste.

    INTERACTIVE TV (iTV): iTV enables advertisers to engage consumers more deeply with interactive content and promotions, using TV commercials as a “jumping off point.” Solutions include dedicated advertiser channels, commercial overlays for lead generation, smart TV applications and e-commerce. Modi will provide advertisers with strategic planning, buying, production, and data analysis across platforms including cable, satellite, telco and gaming services.

    Rino Scanzoni, Chief Investment Officer of GroupM, noted that Modi will be supported by the full resources and scale of GroupM including its TV implementation, optimization, research and data capabilities. The unit’s services will be made available to clients of all GroupM agencies, which include Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare. In addition the new unit will offer its mservices to other WPP agencies and directly to clients who may not work with a GroupM media agency.

    Bologna started his career at MEC in 1998 as an assistant media planner on the agency’s AT&T account. He was an original member of MEC’s digital unit (The Digital Edge) and more recently has held positions that focused specifically on advanced television. He is known throughout the television and media industries for his expertise in the field of advanced digital communications.