• Publicis Buys Digitas, Moves To Become Dominant Digital Player by Tom Siebert

    In a bold move that reconfigures the digital hierarchy of Madison Avenue, Paris-based agency holding company Publicis Wednesday announced a deal to acquire online and direct marketing powerhouse Digitas for $1.3 billion in cash. Publicis, which already had a highly regarded and strategically oriented digital team, now gains the kind of clout and talent that will force other big agencies to play catch-up--potentially triggering a rush to gobble up the few remaining independent digital agencies. ...Read the whole story

  • Publicis Deal Gives Digitas Clout, Scale, Leverage To Deal With Big Portals by Joe Mandese

    The merger of Digitas with Publicis' interactive media assets creates a new digital media powerhouse, the likes of which has not been seen on Madison Avenue before. The resulting organization will have the global resources of Publicis' multinational marketing services network, as well as the media-buying scale to compete in a sector where the power has been steadily shifting to the major portals and search players. ...Read the whole story

  • Digitas Goes For 10 Digits, Publicis Pays $1.3 Billion To Bolster Digital Roster by Gavin O'Malley

    Publicis' acquisition of Digitas offers a rare glimpse into the real market value of pure-play digital agencies. At $1.3 billion, the cash deal represents a 23.5% premium over what Digitas shares had been trading at, and establishes market multiples of 3.3 times Digitas' projected 2006 revenues and about 21 times its estimated EBITDA for the year. ...Read the whole story

  • NYTimes.com Appoints Marketing VP by Gavin O'Malley

    NYTimes.com, the digital arm of The New York Times, plans to bring on Murray Gaylord as vice president of marketing by Jan. 8. Gaylord has spent the last six years as vice president of brand marketing at Yahoo. ...Read the whole story

  • Study: Web Users Tolerate Product Placement by Shankar Gupta

    Nearly 70% of online conversations about product placement in movies, TV and games monitored were neutral or positive, according to a study released Wednesday by buzz-monitoring firm New Media Strategies. ...Read the whole story

  • Passions' 'Fancy Crane' Joins Web 2.0 by Mark Walsh

    Social networking company Cyworld USA is pairing with NBC to create a profile page and other community features around a popular character on the daytime soap "Passions." The effort is aimed at expanding the show's ties to its core audience of young female viewers. ...Read the whole story

  • Yahoo Scores Most Page Views Of Year by Wendy Davis

    With approximately 354.5 billion page views through Nov. 30, Yahoo was the most trafficked Web property of the year, according to new data released Wednesday by Nielsen//NetRatings. MySpace garnered the second highest number of page views (250.7 billion), while Google placed third (147.7 billion). ...Read the whole story

Follow MediaPost