Leading global media investment & management operation GroupM is gearing up to launch in New Zealand during Q1 2015. The arrival of the group will see MediaCom, Mindshare, MEC and maxus come under the operational and financial structure of GroupM. Clients of the group’s creative agencies will continue under their current agreements with their current agencies.
GroupM’s primary purpose is to maximise the performance of the individual media agencies on behalf of its clients, shareholders and people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance- enhancing activities such as trading, sponsorship, sports, digital, finance and proprietary technology development.
In addition, Ikon New Zealand will form part of GroupM. Ikon is owned by STW Group who are also partners with GroupM through Mindshare and Maxus. Ikon will retain its brand, but become part of the GroupM New Zealand management structure. Ikon Australia is unaffected by the partnership in New Zealand.
John Steedman, Chairman of GroupM for Australasia, described the move as creating a significant opportunity to offer new technology and other innovations that would drive results for clients.
“We have been evaluating the New Zealand marketplace for some time and we believe market dynamics and conditions are now right for the establishment of GroupM,” he says.
“Our primary goal is to keep our clients at the forefront of an ever changing industry. While scale has always been important in the media business, the impact that technology, data and fragmentation have had on our business has made the application of scale more important than ever.”
Twelve-year MediaCom veteran Sean Seamer, recently based in Singapore as Chief Business Development Officer across Asia Pacific, will take the reins of the operation as GroupM New Zealand CEO and report into Steedman.
“Sean is a Kiwi with strong global experience in digital and business development and that experience, coupled with an intimate knowledge of GroupM from his tenure at MediaCom, puts him in a unique position for ensuring the success of the direction we would like to take in New Zealand,” Steedman said.
Seamer said: “I’m grateful to be returning to New Zealand to take on this role. There are very few markets left in the world where you can establish GroupM in this way and I consider myself lucky to be able to do this while returning to my home nation.”
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