Reprise, the largest independent SEM firm in the U.S., will exist as a stand-alone unit within IPG's fledgling Futures Marketing Group. The company's founders and managing partners Peter Hershberg and Joshua Stylman will report to Bant Breen, executive vice president-director of strategic development and innovation, IPG.

Reprise is the first company to join the Futures unit; Hershberg and Stylman will also become members of the Futures Marketing Group's advisory board.

"This move demonstrates the importance of search marketing in the overall marketing mix," said Greg Sterling, principal, Sterling Market Intelligence. "Big agencies need to bring that expertise in-house. Reprise is a credible shop that had risen to a certain level of visibility."

While online display and brand advertising is growing at a faster rate, "search is arguably the most important single area of online advertising," Sterling said, adding that most advertisers want integrated campaigns that have multiple online and offline components.

Hershberg and Stylman, who are childhood friends, launched their company in February 2003 and grew it to 55 employees. The company is self-funded and has no investors or board members. Clients include Microsoft, USA Today, HarperCollins, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Castrol.

"Given our history, we feel very strongly about our independence and Interpublic felt strongly about it too," said Hershberg, explaining the rationale for reporting to the Futures Group which spearheaded IPG's investments in Facebook and Spot Runner, among others.

Reprise, he said, will function as an independent company under the IPG umbrella that will work on non-IPG clients, but will also serve as a resource for IPG clients via agencies Deutsch, ID Media and Universal McCann.

"We feel very good about where we're sitting within Interpublic. The borders of what we do and all these other forms of marketing are really starting to blur. The definition of search has really changed," Hershberg said, noting the growing importance of social media optimization. He expects to dramatically grow the Reprise workforce, but declined to offer a specific target.

"We do have real technology leverage. We can get a lot of scale out of the technology infrastructure that we have in place. So we can bring more clients in incrementally," Hershberg explained, responding to questions about growth.

"We feel that this was a very unique and interesting opportunity, and both we and Interpublic thought it made sense on many different levels," Hershberg said.

MediaPost's OMMA magazine named Reprise Media Best Search Agency in 2006.

"Both sides realized the search world is changing and that just delivering search services on their own now isn't the way to go," Breen said of the Reprise deal. "There's a real push to tie search into a broader marcom (marketing communications) push, Web analytics, etc."

Breen said his group is not only focusing on making the deals but also integrating the businesses with IPG companies. He expects at least two more additions to the Futures Marketing portfolio this year, but declined to specify the specific areas of investment.

Independent search firms are hot--and getting hotter, it seems. aQuantive, holding company for Avenue A|Razorfish,, snapped up Go Toast in 2003. DoubleClick has Performics. Omnicom owns Resolution Media, and Aegis Group snapped up iProspect.

Did-It, 360i and iCrossing are among the declining number of SEM firms that remain independent, for now.

Separately, WPP's media unit Group M announced that it plans to establish a search marketing practice.

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