• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 21, 2009

As part of a reorganization that will more seamlessly integrate its traditional and digital media services brands, WPP's MediaCom Worldwide unit next month will drop its Beyond Interaction brand, and will consolidate all its digital operations under the MediaCom Interaction name, Online Media Daily has learned. The move marks an end to one of Madison Avenue's seminal digital media brands, and one which WPP acquired in 2005 as part of its acquisition of then Beyond parent Grey Advertising.

Founded in 1995 as Beyond Interactive, the pure-play digital media shop was acquired by Grey later that year. It was renamed Beyond Interaction in 2008, as part of a broader integration of the Interaction surname across GroupM's digital operations.

The phasing out of the Beyond name is being made for several reasons, Doug Checkeris, CEO of MediaCom North America, and Sloan Broderick, managing director of Beyond Interaction, explained to OMD.

Chief among them was the fact that MediaCom has quietly reorganized its traditional and digital media operations, effectively obliterating the functional silos to provide genuinely integrated service teams for its clients. Checkeris said the management team, headed by Broderick, would continue to oversee MediaCom Interaction operationally, but that most of the staff has now been redeployed into integrated client services teams with the rest of the MediaCom organization. He likened the move to the one WPP implemented last year when it flattened the organizational structure of its search operations into GroupM Search, redeploying the best and brightest search experts across its disparate media services brands to focus on client work.

A second key reason for consolidating around the MediaCom Interaction name, is the fact that there were many different versions of the interactive services brand operating around the world, including: Beyond Interaction, Beyond Interactive, Media.Com, and MediaCom Interaction.