"The marketing industry is the last shared service to be optimized by technology," Quentin George, chief digital officer of Interpublic's Mediabrands unit said in a statement announcing the deal at Cannes this morning. "Advertisers deserve greater levels of transparency, efficiency and accountability across their media campaigns to ensure advertising dollars deliver a greater return and that the effectiveness of their strategy is maximized."

The announcement offered scant details indicating exactly how the new system would innovate the market, or would change the way Interpublic processes advertising and media, but the companies said it is now being deployed throughout Microsoft's marketing processes in the U.S. and would be offered to other Interpublic clients by the end of the year. Microsoft is both a client of Interpublic's media agencies, as well as a technology partner, and has long had its eyes set on finding a way into the infrastructure of Madison Avenue's media planning and buying systems, which to date have been managed by proprietary third-party data processing firms such as Donovan Data Systems.

Interpublic said the new media management platform has been in development for six-months, which is interesting timing, given that Interpublic had only renewed a long-term contract with Donovan Data Systems in November 2008, following a protracted review that included a variety of contenders including Media Bank.

Interpublic did not say how MOMS would integrate with its Donovan's media processing system, but the announcement suggests that Interpublic believes it will revolutionize the way media shops inside the $30 billion holding company - shops like Initiative and Universal McCann - will process media for clients.

"MOMS is a move towards a technology-as-a-service model, across traditional and emerging media contact points," reads the agency's statement.

Interpublic did say that the new system would dovetail with other recent media technology innovations, including its recently launched media trading system, the Cadreon Audience Marketplace.

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