• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 11, 2008

With the pomp and circumstance that it might have announced a new creative director in days of old, one of Madison Avenue's best known full-service ad agencies, WPP Group's JWT, this morning announced that David Eastman has been named its worldwide digital director, responsible for the strategic oversight and management of digital advertising campaigns within the agency, and all its subsidiary companies.

Eastman, who joins JWT from CEO of rival Omnicom's Republic Family (formerly Zulu network), had previously been president-CEO of Omnicom's Agency.com.

The appointment comes days after WPP Chairman-CEO Martin Sorrell made an impassioned pitch to Wall Street analysts that WPP, not big rivals like Paris-based Publicis Groupe, is the most forward-thinking, and moving, digital organization on Madison Avenue.

"I think there is a little bit of a misunderstanding over our digital businesses," Sorrell told analysts, investors and journalists attending UBS' Media Week conference in New York this week. He said that digital marketing services now account for about $2.8 billion of WPP's revenues, or about "23% of group revenues," and said that WPP currently is about "three times the size" of its next closest agency competitor - Publicis - in terms of "digital prowess."

He also said that WPP continues to be Google's largest customer, and currently bills about $900 million in search related advertising through Google, or about "6% of their total revenue."

"We're the No. 1 digital media buyer in 2008," he emphasized, noting that WPP agencies will place about $4 billion in digital media billings this year.

"The digital prowess inside [WPP] is probably one of the unsung stories," he asserted.

That said, WPP and even Publicis continue to lag an even smaller Madison Avenue rival, London-based Aegis Group in another measure of "digital prowess:" their global digital staffing. According to RECMA, the ad industry's default source for media billings and interactive staffing, Aegis' Isobar is the largest digital marketing services organization by a wide margin.

Interestingly, another WPP unit, Atlanta-based Studiocom, also announced a new digital media director on Wednesday, Steve Ustaris from Aegis' Carat unit (see news brief).

Meanwhile, JWT indicated the hiring of Eastman was something of a coup.

"Digital is at the core of our business, and David Eastman will be responsible for integrating our many digital assets and overseeing activation and through-the-line marketing throughout the network," stated JWT CEO Bob Jeffrey.