WPP Group

After witnessing ad networks and exchanges capture more revenue from major marketers these last few years, traditional media agencies are starting to play catch up. Interpublic Group's buying and planning shop Mediabrands is working on a digital marketplace tool for clients that will include behavioral targeting. IPG's major ad holding company rivals are not far behind either, WSJ says, noting that WPP Group, Publicis Groupe and Havas are also trying to come up with similar programs.

Ad holding company WPP Group is beginning the new year with preparations to lay off of thousands at its global agencies, Guardian reported. The decision was made during budget meetings held during the last two months. The units that have staffing costs greater than 60 percent of revenue. But the cuts at the global company will not be spread evenly. Reductions will be heavily felt in North America and Western Europe, places that have been hit hard by the advertising slump.

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.

—Whither display?: The woes of online publishers and ad firms that rely on banner ads and the like have been adding up all year, but the economic crisis could push the format over the cliff. Some media execs see salvation though by promoting old fashioned "reach and frequency" as opposed to clicks. MEC Interaction Managing Director Carrie Frolich: "The industry is still focused on impressions as a currency," she tells Mediaweek.

In a move the company calls a strategic transaction, the Nielsen Company Tuesday traded media rates and data provider SRDS to U.K.-based ad agency the WPP Group in exchange for the remaining 50 percent stake in AGBNielsen Media Research, making Nielsen the group’s sole owner.
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UK ad-holding company WPP Group, fresh off its takeover of audience researcher TNS, has sold its 50 percent stake in TV researcher AGBNielsen Media Research to Nielsen. In return, Nielsen will transfer to WPP the assets of ad-pricing researcher SRDS and health-care media-planning data unit PERQ/HCI. Nielsen will also give over its 11 percent share in several subsidiaries belonging to Brazilian media research firm IBOPE Group.  WPP already holds a 31 percent stake in IBOPE. These assets will be added to The Kantar Group, WPP's information, insight and consultancy division.

Clark Kokich, the CEO of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) online ad agency Razorfish, is downplaying rumors that its parent Microsoft is shopping it around.

Looking to expand its European presence, Microsoft's Razorfish has bought Spanish digital ad shop Wysiwyg. Terms were not disclosed. But as Razorfish was adding elsewhere, it was subtracting in the U.S., as Bloomberg reported that the company laid off 40 staffers in New York this week.

Ad holding company WPP Group reported a 16 percent rise in sales in the third quarter, boosted by the stronger dollar and euro against the pound. Revenues came in at £1.72 billion , compared to £1.48 billion pounds a year ago.  In constant currencies, revenue was six percent higher; on a like-for-like basis--stripping out acquisitions and currency fluctuations--growth was three percent.

-- CBS' new web series stars… Saturn?: Novel Adventures, an original web series being rolled out the CBS (NYSE: CBS) Audience Network next month, is centered around a book club starring former former Melrose Place regular Daphne Zuniga.