The advertising agencies Tamir-Cohen and Shalmor-Avnon-Amichay will establish a joint subsidiary for the planning and acquisition of media, under the Mind Share brand name, which will be the Israeli representative of Mind Share International, the media arm of the WPP group.
This is the first step of its kind in the Israeli advertising market, whereby two of the leading ad firms will concentrate their clients’ media management separately from the offices themselves, both physically and functionally.
The two firms share many important clients, including Strauss and Elite. However, the immediate trigger for the establishment of the joint company is the merger – completed last month – between the WPP holdings company and Y&R advertising agency. WPP bought Y&R’s shares for $5.5 billion.
It should be noted that as yet, there has been no merger between Mind Share International – the media arm of WPP – and Media Age, the media arm of Y&R.
Y&R has a 49% holding in Shalmor-Avnon-Amichay. The merger between the foreign parent companies prepared the ground for the exceptional cooperation between Shalmor-Avnon-Amichay and Tamir-Cohen. An approach was also made to Fogel-Levin agency – also connected to WPP – to join the new company, but was answered in the negative.
A decision who will run the joint company will be taken in the coming days.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 2 October 2000