• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 4, 2008

Spark Communications, the spunky media agency within a media agency, has tapped a new managing director from the client side, who says she was attracted by the shop's integrated approach to online and traditional media. And she should know. As vice president-integrated marketing communications for L'Oreal's Maybelline and Garnier divisions, and before that as top media executive at both Vodaphone and T-Mobile, Spark's new managing director Barbara Kittridge has gotten to see the inside of some of the industry's top media agencies from a client's perspective. And what she found, she says, is most are lacking in their degree of genuine integration.

"Universal McCann, OMD, MediaCom, Initiative, Carat, Zenith, Starcom and MediaVest. I know all those organizations, and I've seen the differences first hand," she said, adding that despite their unison claims for seamlessly integrating digital and traditional media, they are still primarily all "siloed" organizations compared to Spark, which has made its 100-plus person organization 100% integrated.

"The IP team has been dissolved and all those people have been put into client teams," she notes.

Asked if Spark, which is organizationally an operating unit of Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group, is truly more integrated than either Starcom or MediaVest, Kittridge demurred. Prior to leaving for the client side, she was a vide president-director at SMG, and worked at the agency from 1993 to 2003.

As the new managing director of Spark, Kittridge will report to Spark President Ken Zasky, and will oversee a client roster including NBC Universal and Virgin Mobile.

She succeeds Greg Clausen, who left the agency late last year.

Kittridge, who spoke to Online Media Daily during a break in a new business pitch during one of her first days on the job, says she was attracted by Spark's "entrepreneurial spirit," and the fact that it's size and culture allow it to be truly integrated in its approach to all media, with no need to break down walls and silos to get there.