Grubbs: New Fuse Post Dream For Him, Powerful Entity For Advertisers

A day after Omnicom announced it was creating a sports and entertainment marketing group combining an array of existing entities, its new chief said it was as close to a dream job as it could get.

"If I had to define a job for myself, it would be very similar to this," said Steve Grubbs, the new CEO of Fuse Sports and Entertainment Group North America. After five years at the helm of PHD North America--with the agency humming on all cylinders and a successor in place--Grubbs said he was seeking a new challenge. At the same time, Omnicom--mindful of marketers' growing interest in linking with sports and entertainment properties--fused together a unit.

Enter Grubbs, who expressed an interest: "I've got my biggest passion in life, which is sports, and then the fun part of the business, which is entertainment."

Grubbs' new operation combines four specialist areas. "We're trying to create the most compelling entertainment unit that we can," he said. "Each one of these entities is a very good business, but we can create something far more powerful by bringing them together."

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The unit consists of: Optimum Entertainment, which will work with clients to weave their brands into TV, film and new media platforms; Optimum Sports, which not only buys media time on sports broadcasts but executes sponsorships and deeper affiliations with leagues and other properties; Full-Circle Entertainment, which works with Hollywood to develop content that could serve as a marketing forum; and Highway Entertainment, which licenses American shows and imports them to Canada, while working with OMD and PHD clients to devise links.

"There is a certain synergy between those groups ... certainly, they're first cousins," Grubbs said. He suggested that more areas of expertise would be added over time, perhaps in the event and field marketing areas and music realm.

On one level, the group will be able to both advise clients on strategies in the sports and entertainment realm and help to execute them. However, the group might face some competition from firms outside Madison Avenue, such as the Hollywood talent shop William Morris, which has tried to bolster its corporate consulting practice in recent years. Also, CAA has added a cadre of high-profile sports agents to its entertainment stable.

Will Grubbs continue to play a role in those pushing for the eBay Media Marketplace, the proposed online system for buying and selling TV time? He isn't sure, but said he will determine that as he settles into his new role, but reiterated his endorsement. "What they're doing makes perfect sense. "What they're doing is in the best interest of the industry. We have to experiment with new forms of buying and selling."

Grubbs will be succeeded at PHD by Matt Seiler.

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