• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, April 3, 2012

WPP’s GroupM has created what its calling a new innovations unit called GroupM Next that will be overseen by Chris Copeland, the CEO of GroupM Search.

The unit is designed to help clients at the company’s media shops—Mindshare, MediaCom, MEC and Maxus—better navigate the evolving digital sector and keep abreast of developments in areas such as social, mobile and addressable systems, better understand the players in the space and identify partnership opportunities within the sector as well.

The new group, which Copeland will oversee in addition to the search unit, which is being folded within GroupM Next, will also put an emphasis on new research to better understand how different digital platforms and technologies are impacting overall consumer media consumption.

GroupM also said it had named Cary Tilds to be its Chief Innovation Officer, a new post at the media oversight arm. Most recently Tilds was Mindshare’s North American digital leader.

According to Copeland, GroupM Next is not a new client offering so much as it is an operations designed to strengthen “the value of our agency and client relationships…the primary focus of this unit is to amplify the efforts that are put forward by the collective of our GroupM agencies.”

The unit comprises about 25 staffers spanning insights, research, technology and education, Copeland said. Part of the mission, he added, “will be to build on the thought and technology platforms” that currently exist within GroupM, such as social media specialist M80 and mobile shop Joule and research unit Kantar.