Seeking additional new media assets, WPP is in talks with the Vancouver-based interactive shop Blast Radius, according to sources close to the deal.
As of Monday, however, no
agreement had been reached. "There is no deal," one source told OnlineMediaDaily.
Founded 10 years ago, Blast Radius's client roster includes AOL, Electronic Arts and Nike. It earned
roughly $60 million in revenue this year and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Amsterdam and London.
WPP representatives offered no comment regarding Blast Radius on Monday. A
spokeswoman for Blast Radius had nothing to say on the matter.
Just last month, WPP acquired Schematic, a Los Angeles-based full-service digital agency with a client roster full of media and
entertainment leaders. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. And this summer, its G2 Worldwide unit acquired independent digital shop Refinery, which generated revenue of $21 million last year, and
whose clients include Merck, Campbell Soup and Merrill Lynch.
Also this summer, G2 acquired Star Echo, a China-based agency offering activation marketing throughout that region. Other recent
grabs include MDS Boole, a data and metrics consultancy in Spain.
Schematic, which late last year was hired by the UK's ITV to design its video-on-demand site and media player, also regularly
works with ABC, NBC Universal, MTV, CNN, Comcast, Time Warner and Turner. The eight-year-old agency had revenues for the year ending March 31 of $29.6 million, with gross assets of $8 million.
Industrywide, independent ad agencies have become a rare breed. Publicis Groupe arguably sounded the death knell in December with its agreement to buy online and direct marketing shop Digitas. And
this year, in response to Google's plan to buy DoubleClick, Microsoft agreed to take Avenue A|Razorfish off the market with its acquisition of aQuantive.