• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 1, 2004

At a time when new forms of out-of-home and place-based media are beginning to crowd out many traditional media, a major ad agency Tuesday announced plans to diversify into the burgeoning in-store media marketplace. Saatchi & Saatchi, a unit of Publicis, has acquired ThompsonMurray, a so-called "shopper marketing agency," which will serve as the basis for Saatchi & Saatchi X, new on-screen and in-store advertising network that will develop, design and place a variety of new media applications.

The move is the latest acknowledgement by a major Madison Avenue player that the media marketplace is growing more diffused and less dependent on traditional media such as TV, radio, print and outdoor. It's also an aggressive move into so-called below-the-line marketing services, the kind that major marketers have been asking their agencies to consider as part of integrated communications plans that go beyond the core advertising media.

"What is on-screen will be directly linked with what happens at the two moments of truth, in the store, and in the home," said Andy Murray, CEO of ThompsonMurray, adding that Saatchi & Saatchi X will focus on developing ways of reaching the "first-moment-of-truth" when consumers decide whether they will buy a product or not.