• Ad Age, Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:30 AM

It's like the advertising equivalent to the Berlin Wall coming down: major marketers like American Express are dismantling their TV silos, replacing them with the more flexible notion of "video." The shift is forcing them to rethink and reshuffle the way they organize their various TV and Internet buying, planning and selling units. Agencies like Publicis Groupe's MediaVest are right in-step with AmEx, announcing that they've renamed their TV-buying teams as "video investment and activation units." The reorganization is not just in name: MediaVest is also placing digital experts alongside broadcast buyers. AmEx calls its new video marketing department "rolling stock video," which may sound lame but is broad-sounding enough to include cinema, pre-roll online video and podcasts. AmEx and MediaVest may be leading the way, but every marketer and agency out there is now buffing up its digital strategy, which is particularly interesting as the upfront season for TV approaches.

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