• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 30, 2011

Starcom MediaVest Group is restructuring both its LiquidThread content unit and its West Coast operations.

Brent Poer has been elevated to the new post of executive vice president and executive creative director, LiquidThread North America. He will oversee a team of 65 content producers working out of offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Toronto.

Previously, Poer had been managing director of MediaVest West Coast operations with responsibility for all LiquidThread activities in the region as well.

With Poer’s move to the expanded LiquidThread role, SMG will fold its MediaVest and Starcom West Coast operations into one unit to be overseen by Kathy Ring, president and COO of Starcom’s Los Angeles office.

While the Starcom and MediaVest offices on the West Coast are being merged, account teams from both agencies will remain aligned with their existing clients, a rep for the agency network confirmed. In effect, SMG will now have one client-facing agency on the West Coast: Starcom. 

As an example, toy marketer Mattel has been a MediaVest client run out of the West Coast office in Los Angeles. Mattel now becomes a Starcom client run out of the region, albeit with the same MediaVest account team running the assignment. The same is true for the other MediaVest clients in the area.  

In addition to Mattel, other Starcom clients run out of Los Angeles include THQ, CBS Films, Del Monte, PetSmart and Universal Studios Hollywood.

Poer's elevation to North American head of LiquidThread is designed to give Brian Terkelsen, global president, SMG LiquidThread, more time to focus on the unit’s aggressive international expansion. LiquidThread was the entity created in August 2010 from the merger of three SMG content creation operations -- Starcom Entertainment, MediaVest’s ConnectiveTissue and the digitally focused Pixel. The intent was to have one content group that SMG could build into a global content capability. Since the reorganization, LiquidThread has expanded to 15 markets outside the U.S.

Poer will report to Terkelsen, who stated that he brought “incredible depth of experience to the role, having developed breakthrough content spanning digital, television, social, mobile and more for many of the most iconic brands in the world, including P&G, Microsoft, Walmart and Mattel.”

Prior to his most recent role, Poer was general manager of theWB.com. Earlier, he served at Lifetime Television and Reebok.