MindShare Announces Major Company-Wide Restructuring

New Agency Model Emerges Based on Integration of Services, Content
Creation and "Value Exchange" Philosophy
NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--
MindShare today announced a global reengineering of its business
structure that streamlines the company's operations by integrating
traditional and digital services and staff into a new model,
full-service marketing agency powered by best-in-class media services.

The restructuring--the first since MindShare was founded in
1997--was announced simultaneously in New York and at the agency's
worldwide headquarters in London by Chief Executive Officer Dominic
Proctor, Chief Strategy Officer Nick Emery, the principal architect of
the plan, and North American CEO Scott Neslund.

The goal of the restructuring is to create a new breed of
marketing services agency dedicated to developing fully integrated,
media-neutral business solutions for clients. The core idea is to move
beyond the realm of media solutions to fully integrate content
creation and related areas to realize the optimum value of exchange
between brands, consumers, and corporations to create competitive
advantage for MindShare's clients.

"Brands are no longer driven by simple ideas or ideals but by a
series of exchanges between the brand and the consumer" said Proctor.
"We are re-inventing our form, our thinking and our process,
underpinning all that we do with digital expertise, to be our clients'
lead business partner in meeting the challenges this new landscape
creates for them."

Neslund and Emery stressed that there is now a pressing need for
media agencies to concentrate on the invention of intellectual
property and the integration of all marketing services, particularly
in the area of digital communications. To that end, the unit known as
MindShare Interaction will cease to exist in its current autonomous
form; all aspects of its function and responsibilities, as well as its
entire staff, will be woven into the overall MindShare organization.

"Content and integration are more important than ever and, in
fact, MindShare has been heading in that direction over the past
several years by making substantial investments in the areas of
research and production--not just traditional media planning and
buying," said Neslund. "In many respects these moves codify what we've
already been doing."

The comprehensive restructuring integrates almost a dozen separate
agency units and disciplines into four new areas spanning all
MindShare services, creating an agency framework focused on
collaboration and consisting of integrated client teams. The four
newly established areas are Client Leadership, Business Planning,
Invention, and The Exchange.

Briefly, here is what each will cover:

-- Client Leadership. A group formed of senior agency executives
who essentially serve as the primary client contacts for each
account. The group will be formed of Client Leaders who will
serve as the lead business partner to each client and be
responsible for setting the vision, developing the team work
plan, and building C-level relationships with the client. The
role will also be held accountable for P&L, performance &
quality. Working together with Client Leaders will be
Operations Leaders, responsible for managing the delivery of
the vision and work plan as well as supervising client team
integration across the agency. Operations Leaders will also be
accountable for media client deliverables and managing staff
KPIs, performance appraisals, and career plans.

-- Business Planning. This group effectively consolidates several
MindShare units combining analytic and strategic expertise to
focus on solving real business issues for the CEO; business
planning rather than simply communications plan development.
Business Planning will weave deep consumer understanding and
communications planning with real-time business data-streams
and click-streams across digital platforms and search to
clearly define a client's business opportunities and marketing
challenges and develop a "go to market" strategy through a
disciplined and fact-based process.

-- Invention. Invention will be the hub of the agency's creative
thinking, bringing together experts across disciplines
including entertainment creation, sponsorship creation and
amplification, retail, digital and strategic planning. Further
to a brief originated in collaboration with Business Planning,
Invention will define and develop a media neutral
communications platform and determine how it is manifested
across the entire consumer journey, vitally fusing content and
contact planning. The role of this group also is to oversee
creative development and production of content rooted in the
platforms and journeys defined.

-- The Exchange. This group combines all trading-digital and
non-digital, distribution leverage, inventory management, data
management, and arbitrage, and tactical planning. The Exchange
will consult with Invention during the creation of the
architecture for the communications strategy and will
translate this into actionable plans, being ultimately
responsible to both the client and client leadership team for
stewarding and activating the brand vision in the real world,
maintaining budget and quality control, and overseeing
short-term, tactical actions.

Emery said the reorganization was in large part sparked by the
expressed needs of the agency's client base as well the agency's
future vision of the marketplace.

"There is a significant need right now among clients for agency
leadership," he said. "They want agencies to take the lead in learning
about and applying digital marketing, from retail to creating new
revenue streams. They want agencies to take the lead in the
integration of diverse marketing services. And they want agencies to
take the lead in being more creative with marketing ideas, fusing
context with contact in real-time. We intend to be the ones leading in
all those areas in a structure focused on client needs, not the usual
self-serving tokenism. Simply put, MindShare's role is to maximize the
value of the exchange between brands, consumers, and corporations to
create competitive advantage for our clients."

While the four new service areas represent the practical core of
the new agency model, MindShare is also introducing a new philosophy
dubbed "The Value Exchange" that represents the conceptual core of the
restructuring.

Neslund and Emery described The Value Exchange as a revolutionary
philosophy based on the agency's belief that a brand's valuation is
driven by the sum total of exchanges between consumers and the brand,
and that these exchanges can be mapped and monitored in real-time;
MindShare thereby assimilating a NASDAQ for brands.

"Understanding this value exchange yields diagnostic information
to drive the formation of effective business strategies for driving
growth," Neslund said. "These strategies are, in turn, activated into
powerful marketing ideas and exciting communications programs that
deliver tangible, measurable results."

The restructuring is a global undertaking impacting all of
MindShare's 97 offices in 67 countries. Implementation will begin in
specified areas of each office immediately and be phased into the
overall operations of each one over time. The full reorganization is
expected to be completed by year-end.

ABOUT MINDSHARE

MindShare is a global media and marketing services company with
billings in excess of $21.4 billion (source: RECMA). The network
consists of 97 offices in 67 countries throughout the U.S., Latin
America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. MindShare is a
member of WPP, one of the world's leading communications services
groups, and is part of its GroupM Media Company.

ABOUT GROUPM

GroupM, the world's leading full service media investment
management operation, was created by WPP Group to oversee its assets
in this sector. These assets include MindShare, Mediaedge:cia,
MediaCom and MAXUS. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application
of volume and scale in trading, innovation and quality of services, in
order to bring benefit to clients and the companies it operates.

For more information, please visit: www.groupm.com.

MindShare
North America:
John Wolfe, 212-297-7160
Mobile: 914-659-8663
john.wolfe@mindshareworld.com
or
Worldwide:
Mark Banham, 020 7969 4468
Mobile: 44 07867 537 851
mark.banham@mindshareworld.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008