Global holding group IPG has launched Mediabrands Health, a so-called ‘centre of excellence’ (COE) created to sit within the firm’s existing Mediabrands division.
The new unit will look to boost Health’s existing capabilities by offering global media services at scale, as well as the ability to leverage its relationships with pharmaceutical companies and brands in the health and wellness sectors.
Former global president of health at Initiative, Melissa Gordon-Ring will lead the new unit as president and will be joined by former head of strategy at Initiative, Daniel Landers – who takes up the CSO role.
“We’ve been quietly growing our health businesses across IPG Mediabrands for the past number of years by working with large pharma companies,” Gordon-Ring said.
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“We decided to create a COE — not another agency — as a place to bring together our best-in-class processes, practices, tools and talents in a way that allows us to supercharge growth for our clients and set us up for success.”
Mediabrands Health is intended to act as a strategic hub for the collective IPG Mediabrands network, providing the group’s marketers with access to insights garnered from the agency’s data and analytics tools.
IPG Health chief commercial officer, Mike Guarino added: “If you look across all of IPG and our offerings, we have those that want this discrete, standalone [solution] and the COE is able to scale and do that,
“We also have those [solutions] that are tightly embedded within the creative agency. There’s a value and benefit to both, so we can offer a choice and variety to our clients.”
