MindShare

We knew this name sounded familiar. Just over two months ago, we reported on an NBC/Bing promo that resulted in a lawsuit brought by Delaware-based agency Denizen against JWT and parent WPP.

Well, Denizen apparently isn't finished with its legal onslaught against WPP as it's now suing the latter's subsidiary media agency MindShare on the same basis that Denizen's program-integrated advertising concepts were stolen. According to the blog THR, Esq., the new suit concerns the integration of Vaseline ads into a Lifetime series called Maneater (draw your own conclusions).

Like the JWT spat, though, Denizen isn't specifically suing MindShare for patent infringement, but for misappropriating trade secrets, breaching a contract and misrepresenting after the defendant brokered an agreement between Unilever and Lifetime for the integration. You can read the actual complaint here.

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At a little media agency called Mindshare, an interesting program has been put in place to bring the whole shop up to snuff regarding the inter Webs. We call it reverse mentoring, but it's officially termed Digital Minds — an initiative seeking to get senior leaders within the agency up-to-date in the online game.

So, WTF Does That Entail?
Glad you asked. Since the agency didn't get back to us on this, we had to do some digging (note: we think it's kinda ridic that we didn't get a call back on this, especially since our only intention was to point out this cool thing they're doing. But whatever — PR is not equal to advertising).

Says our source, "The goal is two-fold: first, to educate senior leaders about key segments within the online space (social networking, gaming, e-commerce, blogs, search tools — think RSS aggregators, etc); second, to challenge senior leaders to "think digitally."

How to: Think Digitally
"[A]pproaching and using (not only the internet, but) computers with a digital ethos," says spy. "There is a large quota of senior leadership throughout our industry struggling to fully understand/nurture the digital space."

No doubt — it was tots awk when my mom Facebooked me, then Tweeted me, within one week.

"Since digital is such a large part of today's conversation (not only advertising/marketing, but consumer lifestyles in general), nobody can afford to be lackluster in their digital knowledge. As part of Mindshare's restructuring, senior leaders whose careers have largely been spent as experts of traditional media are no longer granted 'freebie' passes on not being experts on things like social networking, online gaming, and e-commerce."

The Frigging Point:
Our source said it all, "experts of traditional media are no longer granted 'freebie' passes on not being experts on things like social networking, online gaming, and e-commerce."

Yeah, I know it's hard to take, but this is really important — and something I talk about with seasoned ad folk all the time. It's about time the true social media experts (get ready to get mad) were given the time of day. It'd be pretty hard to make the argument that anyone over the age of, say, 30 could really be an expert in social media. I don't mean the people who do it for a living, either. I'm talking about the generation that used social media purely for fun, back before it became part of the marketing vernacular, when it was just this thing you could do online. The ground floor users who played with tools like MySpace and Facebook and AOL's Instant Messenger and chat rooms — those who had the social desire to interact online for no other reason that social drive.

I talk with seasoned folks about this because they feel left out, and it's notable that MindShare is investing time into helping the wizened within the shop — the benefits are endless.

Source: "Simply put, the convergence of the way Mindshare approaches media creates an environment where all employees are expected to have a holistic knowledge of media communications." And that's important, too — we all have to hustle.

Want to know more — like who's involved and what's being taught? Click continued.

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continued...

We're told that Mindshare CEO Scott Neslund was either fired or let go. Yesterday was his last day. We're working on the details, but staff were just made aware this morning. Emails are set to you go out in 2 minutes. A press release is to follow.

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Ernie Simon is getting ready to jump a pay grade and not within his agency, Mindshare. Simon is moving to OMD where he will be named the Chief Strategy Officer. According to the agency, Simon will begin in April.

"As OMD evolves its product and services to meet the needs of a difficult economy and complicated media landscape, it has become apparent that this new role is an essential addition to our outstanding management team," said Alan Cohen, U.S. CEO, OMD.

Simon has been with Mindshare since it's founding in 1999. He made the leap to what Mindshare calls, Office of the President, in 2005 when he was named President of Strategic Planning. Simon replaced Ray Simko who took early retirement from the WPP owned agency and was involved in the trial of the infamous Shona Seifert who was found guilty of falsifying time sheets on the White House's anti-drug media campaign run by the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy. Simko was eventually brought up on related charges, and pleaded guilty before the trial was over. Beejesus. Those were the days.

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At a recent town hall meeting, Mindshare CEO Scott Neslund gave the grim news to the media company's staffers.

There won't be any raises or promotions until 2010 — though the company had suspended each of those perks as of last summer. Our source tells us Neslund alluded to the possibility of more layoffs, but didn't say when.

We're told this news came on the heels of HSBC's departure from the media company — though we can't say whether to events are mutually exclusive.

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Why do agencies make these things? If you guys just want together and make a video for fun, like awesome. Do your thing. However, why tag your agency name to something that makes you look out of date and down right strange? This latest entry into the misguided in-house promo collection comes from Mindshare Paris.

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Hopefully, your agency is still planning on holding a holiday party.
Mindshare is. Something about the Bon Jovi and random hip-hop background music on the web invite; the stock photos of people "getting down" and it being held at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club might have you thinking this is going to be a dud of party. Aha! That's where you would be wrong.

Last year's party was reported to be actually, um, fun with the CEO inviting staffers to a post-party location and letting them drink on his tab until the wee hours of the night. With the current economic situation, we doubt that's going to happen, but you know, ad staffers are easy. Give them some free liquor and you can expect shit to go pear shaped, right quick.

It's at 6 pm on December 10th if you feel like crashing.

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We hear that moments ago at Mindshare, some employees were told there will be layoffs. The agency supposedly hasn't been hiring since June, and according to an inside source, many staff members have been promoted to fill internal positions that would normally be staffed by new hires.

As a result of this, many departments are already very understaffed, and though the agency seems to have held off as long as possible, the inevitable may be finally happening.

AgencySpy contacted Mindshare for details on the situation, but an agency representative declined to comment.

We're not being told how many will be let go, but an e-mail is to come shortly on the matter. However, the WPP company has been suffering from the same hiring freeze that's created a stall for its brethren.

Refer to this post on Martin Sorrell's memo on the issue. See the actual memo, here.

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Mindshare has opened its pocketbook to purchase media firm Michaelides & Bednash. The U.K. shop will be folded ever so neatly in with the Invention Group and the founders (George Michaelides, Graham Bednash [pictured above], along with managing partner Paul O'Neill) will be heading up the newly formed Unilever unit. Makes sense. In 2003, Unilever tapped M&B to handle communications with a $30 million budget, for Family Brands.

So, Ad Age says that Michaelides and Bednash are widely regarded as fathers of media planning. Really? We polled a few media planner friends who had never heard of the company. A few others had heard of M&B, but balked at the founding father role.

Arguably, M&B was at the forefront of a planning revolution in the U.K. that includes shops like Naked. The agency was all about not media buying, but implementing strategy as part of the creative process. This might be one of those UK versus US things. Making a splash in Britain doesn't guarantee a direct ripple in The States.

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Seems we're not the only ones going wonk-eyed at Mindshare's rebranding.

Someone has sent us the working creative outline behind the two circles, which supposedly signifies the flow of creativity. Thanks for the treat. It made us chuckle, which is very hard to do.

If you'd like to see a bigger image, go here.

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