• by Steve McClellan , October 11, 2011

Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi is creating a new agency focused on social and mobile customer-relationship marketing that will be called CRM365.  Seth Solomons, global CMO at Publicis’ Digitas, is leaving that post to run the new agency as CEO.

Initially, the New York-based operation will have 45 staffers that will include a combination of full time employees and consultants. But the shop intends to expand overseas, with plans to establish offices in the U.K., France and Germany in 2012.

Solomons will continue to report to Laura Lang, CEO of Digitas and the VivaKi executive in charge of the digital, social and mobile agencies Big Fuel, Denuo, Phone Valley and Razorfish. 

In an interview, Solomons, a 12-year Digitas veteran, said there were many reasons he decided to take on the new challenge, including the fact that he’s CEO and the buck stops with him at the new shop. But he also said that he’s become “passionate about how technology can help us do what we do even faster.” 

Technology has empowered consumers with a “speed of need” mentality, he said, where they demand service when and where they want it. And technology has also enabled agencies and marketers to meet those needs.

In part, the new CRM365 unit is a bet that the estimated $3 billion CRM sector will grow at an accelerated pace going forward and that the new agency can capture a significant piece of that growth. It’s also designed to help clients wrap their minds around, and draw better insights from, the sea of data flowing from the social and mobile media universe. "In a meeting a couple of weeks ago, a client said, ‘I have buckets full of data and I don’t know what to do with it,’” said Solomons.

“The pain that this particular client highlights is one that is shared by many in the industry. And this is what some have called the ‘Big Data Challenge.’ And ‘big’ is now bigger with social and mobile data. And this is the opportunity.”

The new agency has a platform that connects directly with client databases.

Job one is to get clients within the Publicis Groupe of companies to sign on to the new service, said Solomons. So far, talks are progressing positively. At some point down the road, clients outside the group will likely be targeted, he added.

The new unit will work with outside firms, including Conversen, a CRM campaign management platform company and analytics firm DeepMile Networks. Those companies provide services that will help CRM365 craft its client offering.

In addition to running CRM365,  Solomons is also tasked with helping Lang to identify growth and expansion opportunities for the digital, social and mobile agencies that Lang oversees.  

“We have seen significant demand for CRM expertise,” said Lang.  “Overall, the $3 billion CRM market promises accelerated growth. CRM365, led by Seth, who is an energetic entrepreneur and a respected business strategist, will be at the forefront.”