MindShare Buys UK Media Planner Michaelides & Bednash
This story was written by David Kaplan.
WPP Group media agency MindShare has bought UK media planner Michaelides & Bednash. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The media planner will be folded into MindShare's Invention group, which handles digital content, programming, sponsorship and planning. M&B's founders, George Michaelides, Graham Bednash and managing partner Paul O'Neill, will take a lead role in further developing Invention. They will be working with lead MindShare digital exec Norm Johnston. All M&B staff will now transfer to Mindshare to work within the Invention group. Michaelides & Bednash will no longer continue to operate as an agency.
The purchase was designed to buttress MindShare's move earlier this year to restructure the agency by focusing the previous 12 existing departments into to four broad units: Client Leadership; Business Planning; Invention and The Exchange, Mindshare's trading arm. In addition to helping run Invention, the new team will also create a dedicated unit for MindShare client Unilever, one of the largest packaged goods marketers and an advertising bellwether. Release
By David Kaplan