AFG Revamps Its Media Department

Avrett Free Ginsberg is taking a page from the bigger boys, reshaping its media unit into a communications-channel planning department. Media staffers are being folded in with account planners, and the Interpublic Group shop is taking its research in-house.

This week, the eight-person media department will add seven account planners; three of those positions are new, said chief marketing officer Jamie Korsen. The revamped department will be “media planning on steroids,” Korsen said.

Research was previously farmed out to media-agency siblings MediaFirst, Initiative Media and Universal McCann, which will retain broadcast-buying duties, Korsen said.

The revamp comes less than a month after Scott Carlson was hired from Love Collective as ecd and is part of a plan to modernize the traditional New York shop and double revenue in four years.