- Steve McClellan

NEW YORK In a bid to make its offerings more integrated and quicker to respond to changing client strategies, Draftfcb New York has merged its media, digital and customer-relationship management practices into a single unit called the Real-Time Marketing division.

The shop is the latest agency to combine digital and media units to better align capabilities with expanding media platforms as consumers gain greater control over when and where they consume marketing messages.

The move affects more than 100 of the shop's 600 staffers in the New York office.
 
Chief media officer Richard Gagnon heads the new division. As a result of the change, Tim Queenan, executive director of digital convergence, and Mike Brzozowski, executive director of CRM consulting, now have dual reporting lines to Gagnon and Peter DeNunzio, president, Draftfcb New York. Gagnon reports to DeNunzio.

Internal documents explaining the move to agency staffers late last week describe it as "an organizational shift to bring better channel planning solutions to our clients."

DeNunzio said the realignment "enhances our ability to plan media investment, design digital content and create targeted customer programs with one common view of the customer's experience with the brand."

Up to now, the CRM practice in particular has been more of a stand-alone specialized service.

DeNunzio said the decision to reorganize arose from the way several of the shop's client teams had already organized themselves to work accounts including the Office of National Drug Control Policy and Plan B contraceptive. "Essentially it's pulling out a best practice and applying it across the board at the agency," DeNunzio said.
 
Gagnon explained the move this way: "Our industry is going through a cultural shift from ad time to real time. Ad time can confine us to industry-determined guidelines and artificial silos. Real time is reflective of how brands can seamlessly weave through the lives of individuals across different platforms and within different environments."

The reorganization is in part a recognition that digital technology continues to evolve the way consumers interact with brands, added Queenan. "We know that digital has made the annual marketing plan an antiquated construct," he said. "We have structured ourselves knowing that consumers have more ways to pick up, play with and pass along branded content than ever before."

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