We are restructuring

17/04/2008

We are restructuring our global business model and aim to integrate our current specialist service units into four new global groups.

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MINDSHARE ANNOUNCES MAJOR COMPANY-WIDE RESTRUCTURING

New Agency Model Emerges Based on Integration of Services, Content Creation and "Value Exchange" Philosophy


MindShare today announced a global re-engineering of its business structure that streamlines the company's operations by fully integrating all services. Services including ROI modeling, communications strategy, sports sponsorship and content creation are being drawn together in a simplified framework to deliver a new, comprehensive marketing services offering.

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 realise 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."

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.

"Content and integration are more important than ever and, in fact, MindShare has been heading in that direction over the past several years by focusing the bulk of our hiring in the area of research and production rather than traditional media planning and buying," said Neslund. "In many aspects these moves codify what we've already been doing."

The comprehensive restructuring integrates almost a dozen separate agency units and disciplines into four new groups that will span all MindShare services creating an agency framework which is focused on collaboration. The four newly established groups are Client Leadership, Business Planning, Invention, and The Exchange.

Briefly, here is what each group 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 in on solving real business issues for the CEO; business planning rather than simply communications plan development. Business Planning will interweave 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, marketing challenges and develop a "go to market" strategy meeting those challenges 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 the media neutral communications platform and how it is manifested across the entire consumer journey, vitally fusing content and contact planning. The role of this group also encompasses the overseeing of 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. 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 be 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 reorganisation was in large part sparked by the expressed needs of the agency's client base.

"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 maximise the value of the exchange between brands, consumers, and corporations to unfair create competitive advantage for our clients."

While the four new groups 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 reorganisation is expected to be completed by year end.

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