Michael Sussman Promoted To President Of BAV Worldwide, Y&R

Michael Sussman has been promoted to president of BAV Worldwide, Y&R -- a new position at the WPP shop, the agency said Thursday.

Most recently, Sussman was global director of analytic insights and strategy for Y&R advertising. In that role, among other things, he oversaw and helped shape the agency’s key branding tool known as the BrandAsset Valuator, a proprietary database designed to help clients with strategic branding initiatives.

In his new role, Sussman is tasked with integrating and expanding the BrandAsset Valuator globally throughout the agency. The process has already begun. Over this past year, Sussman has put in place regional BAV leaders in Asia, EMEA and LATAM.

“Michael has been part of the development of BAV since shortly after its inception,” two decades ago, said David Sable, global CEO, Y&R, to whom Sussman reports. “He is deeply committed to the agency, full of passion for brands and masterful at interpreting data to tell compelling stories about them.”

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The agency said Sussman will work with Sandy Thompson, Y&R’s global planning director, to integrate BAV and analytics into Y&R’s strategic process. He will also oversee the global BAV research and fielding process and will boost the number of market-specific “brandscape” studies that the agency develops. Eight new market studies are already in progress this year.

Sussman and his team will continue to partner with John Gerzema, chairman and CEO of BAV Consulting, a separate unit that also reports directly to Sable. BAVC focuses on building relationships/consulting with external clients, while BAV supports new business and agency clients for Y&R.

Sussman said that he was “thrilled to take my 17 years of experience designing research, interpreting data and exploring brand equity for Y&R’s clients with BAV and integrating these learnings on a global level.” 

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