Today we learned that Young & Rubicam plans to consolidate its retail and shopper marketing capabilities in launching Labstore, a unified network.
The project first launched in Spain in 2001 and expanded to several Latin American markets in 2012; it will now include shopper/retail capabilities in all Y&R offices worldwide with the goal of unifying these services across Y&R’s global network.
The project will be led by John Bird, co-founder of Australia/New Zealand retail agency IdeaWorks; he will move to New York for the new role and assume the title of Global Managing Director.
What does this mean for Y&R employees? A spokesperson confirms that the agency is not moving people at the moment–simply uniting the global network’s existing services under the Labstore banner and opening Labstore units within the offices of both Y&R and VML.