• by Shankar Gupta , March 15, 2006

Digital and direct media buying agency MindShare Interaction, a division of the WPP Group's MindShare, named John Montgomery as CEO and Margaret Clerkin as general manager. Both were previously with mOne Worldwide North America, which was formerly a joint venture between MindShare Worldwide and OgilvyOne Worldwide.

The pair will oversee the firm's growth, as well as its expansion into emerging ad technologies including mobile, viral marketing, and interactive TV.

Montgomery said MindShare's global reach will allow MindShare Interactive to import emerging technologies that are already used elsewhere in the world to the United States. "More important than that clout itself is our ability to share insights in the area of emerging technology. In Asia, mobile is way ahead of where we are, and in Europe, interactive television is further along than where we are," he said. "Similarly, what we do online is more advanced than other parts of the world, so we can export that."

MindShare Interaction is a relatively new agency, formed in February after the breakup of mOne Worldwide. Thus far, MindShare Interaction has worked with brands including Sprint, American Express, and Unilever, on its Axe and Dove product lines on mobile and branded entertainment campaigns. Upcoming campaigns for those clients will aim to incorporate technologies such as video on demand, mobile marketing, and interactive TV.

"Every market and every culture reacts differently to these innovations," Clerkin said. "We have the ability to have a first look advantage on the application that consumers are using these, and then allow our clients to leapfrog ahead of other clients in the U.S."