Source: Adweek
More changes are coming to the Publicis Groupe network as it continues restructuring, following an announcement made last December. The holding company has decided to drop the Optimedia name altogether in favor of Blue 449. The six remaining Optimedia offices and Match Media in Australia will all take the Blue 449 name.
In March Publicis Groupe announced a major restructuring of its media arm, Publicis Media, that broke apart longtime media agency ZenithOptimedia. Zenith now operates as a standalone agency, while Optimedia joined forces with Blue 449 to form Optimedia | Blue 449.
“This is certainly a very exciting time for our clients and our staff. For the first time we are going to have a true international network,” Dave Ehlers, U.S. CEO of Blue 449, said of the branding change. “Quite a bit of our service model will be changing as well, in terms of the type of product that we’re going to be offering to clients,” which will include content, data and innovation.
Moving into 2017, Blue 449 will continue to ensure that it has “a modern product for our clients,” and that the agency is the “company of choice for our employees,” because while it’s been easy to attract people to the media business, Elhers said its been more challenging to retain people and keep them loyal to the company. “I’m making sure that everybody we are putting in place in the new branding focuses on our clients and our staff,” he said.
Currently operating in 14 core markets, with 22 offices, Blue 449 said it plans to open a few more offices by the end of 2017 including Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico and Bulgaria. Ehlers noted that for all international clients working with Blue 449 or former Optimedia agencies, the ability to work with a U.S. agency will now be much easier moving forward.
Over the last nine months Optimedia U.S. won a number of big accounts including eBay, NRG/Reliant and the Hewlett Packard Enterprise business, which will now run under Blue 449. The media agency also scored DJI, Asda, HomeAway, Kayak and Alibaba.
