• by Joe Mandese , November 13, 2007

In what can only be described as the tail wagging the dog, Publicis Groupe this morning announced the restructuring of its venerable Leo Burnett agency - one of the oldest continually operating agency brands in America - in order to get it to collaborate more openly with its interactive and traditional media services operations, including Starcom MediaVest Group, which ironically began as the media department of Leo Burnett.

Publicis described the new structure as an "open architecture" model drawing on the assets and key personnel of Burnett, SMG, and Digitas, with "no default lead" in the process. Tellingly, Jack Klues, the chairman of Publicis' media operations, who began his career in Burnett's media department, will chair a new management board that will oversee the process. Other members of the board include: SMG Global CEO Renetta McCann; Burnett Chairman-CEO Tom Bernardin; and Digitas Chairman-CEO David Kenny.

The reorganization is the most blatant gesture yet by a major agency holding company that the traditional agency model is broken and needs to be reinvented. "In today's opt-out world of consumer choice and control, clients need deeper, more measurable and more actionable insights to engage individuals at the right time and place, with the right content," explained Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy this morning's announcement.

Publicis said the heart of the new collaborative model, which becomes operational in the first quarter of 2008, would be a "central services operation," dubbed The Insight Factory, that would aggregate the tools and resources of Burnett, SMG, Digitas, as well as Arc, to produce better advertising strategies and executions.

The Burnett and Arc teams would contribute creative, research, market segmentation, and planning, production and database management, SMG would add media behavioral insights, media research and some digital production resources, and Digitas would offer creative, brand navigation, digital insights, dashboard management systems, digital production and technology development, the company said.