• by John Gaffney , April 15, 2003

One week after consolidating its direct marketing agencies, the WPP Group dropped another bunker buster on the ad industry yesterday by combining all of its media agencies into a new division called Group M.

Group M, according to a statement released late yesterday, will operate MindShare and Mediaedge:cia and all other brands. MindShare and Mediaedge:cia will report into WPP through Group M with each retaining separate management.

"Each management will be empowered and accountable for P&L delivery and for ensuring that we maintain client confidentiality and conflict sensitivity as the businesses move more closely together," said the statement. "We operate in a business where scale and volume is critical. Scale translates to trading effectiveness for the benefit of our clients. It also allows us to develop and utilize better tools, systems, and research to improve the quality of our service to our clients."

The release went on to say that the size and scale of the new company will share substantial resources to fully "exploit our combined marketplace leverage for the benefit of our clients while always maintaining client conflict sensitivity." WPP claims Group M will be the world's leading consolidated full-service media investment management group.

Group M will be led by a Board comprised of Charles Courtier, Rupert Day, Mainardo De Nardis, Nick Emery, Irwin Gotlieb, Tom Handy, and Dominic Proctor. Irwin Gotlieb will be the Group M CEO, and Rupert Day will be the Group M CFO. Beth Gordon will serve as a non-executive director. With Irwin moving to Group M, Dominic Proctor will become the MindShare CEO.

According to an internal document, the priorities for Group M are to "enhance the credibility and power of both MindShare and Mediaedge:cia thus boosting WPP's positioning in this sector." It is also expected that Group M will leverage volume to create local, regional, and global scale and thus trade as the strongest player in the market.