• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 15, 2006

Wieden + Kennedy, the Portland, Ore.-based brand agency that has been shaking up the media world is reorganizing with an eye on, well, the world. In a restructuring of its management team announced effective Jan. 1, the agency's top three executives - Dan Wieden, Dave Luhr, and John Jay - will relinquish their day-to-day responsibilities in Portland to focus on the agency's global operations. Tom Blessington, ad W + K vet who rejoined the agency in September from managing director for TBWAChiatDay's Nissan and Infiniti automotive accounts, becomes managing director of the Portland operations.

"It was no longer possible for the global team to also run Portland," said Dave Luhr, who is giving up his role as managing director in Portland, and will now serve exclusively as chief operating officer for W + K's global network.

As a member of the global management team, John Jay will help manage the agency's global business, with a specific focus on Asia.

The reorganization establishes a common management structure in all six of W + K's offices: Portland, New York, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Shanghai.

The moves come as W + K has emerged as a major player not only in the media services business, winning some high-profile assignments that had been handled by big media-only shops.

In February, W + K surprised the media services world by picking up media planning and buying for Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, as part of a rebundling of the brand's creative, communications planning and media. The move shocked some observers, because it was taken away from P&G's roster media shop Starcom MediaVest Group. The Old Spice brand followed a similar earlier move by P&G that consolidated media for P&G's Iams and Eukanuba pet food lines at W + K from P&G's other roster media shop, Carat.

A P&G spokesperson described the Old Spice media reassignment as a "test," but W + K also poached the media portion of one of its highest profile pieces of business, ABC's $70 million-plus account, from OMD.

It's unclear whether January's reorganization specifically impacts the agency's media services structure, but late last month the agency poached Renny Gleeson from Carat Fusion to serve as global director of digital strategies. In this newly created position, Gleeson is expected to develop clients' digital strategies and to bridge the narrowing divide between media and creative.