- Noreen O'Leary

NEW YORK MDC Partners said it has acquired a stake in Attention Partners, a New York-based social media and marketing communications company.
 
MDC did not disclose the size of the stake or terms of the investment.

Among the clients listed on Attention's current blog are A&E TV, BJ's Wholesale Club, Consumer Reports, Estee Lauder, Jones New York, Herman Miller, Nasdaq, The Daily Beast, Sundance, Newsweek, Nine West and Omnicom corporate brand consultancy Wolff Olins.
 
"The brand-building pendulum continues to shift from persuasion, typically driven by traditional media, to influence from trusted sources. Social media is a powerful vehicle for consumers to emotionally engage their favorite brands," Miles Nadal (shown), MDC Partners' CEO, said in a statement. "Several of our agencies have been working with Attention for over a year with great success, and we look forward to leveraging their expertise across the entire
MDC Partner network."
 
Attention's Curtis Hougland said of MDC: "They give us the resources to grow our clients' businesses with the autonomy to run the business and preserve our entrepreneurial culture and DNA."
 
Originally known as Attention PR, the agency was founded in 2006 by Hougland, who previously created new media practices for Middleberg -- sold to Euro RSCG in 2000 -- and Ruder Finn, according to a statement issued when Attention launched. Hougland founded "one of the first joint online marketing and public relations practices in 1993" and worked with early Internet companies such as AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, Microsoft and Sprynet.