UM Melbourne merges with Coles media shop
IPG Mediabrands has merged two of its Melbourne based agencies, UM and two-year old shop MBThree, to create a larger presence for UM Melbourne.
The merger has promoted MBThree’s managing director, Peter Butler, to the newly created position of managing director of IPG Mediabrands’ Melbourne operations.
Butler (pictured) said the newly merged agency “will have much greater scale and resources than two agencies working in parallel and this is good news for our clients”.
Butler’s remit is to drive greater collaboration on client portfolios and to bring new national and international initiatives to the Melbourne market.
The new UM Melbourne will be lead by three joint managing partners who will report into Butler and UM national CEO Mat Baxter.
As joint managing partner Kim Lion, the former MD of UM Melbourne, will focus on the commercial aspects of the agency. Former GM of MBThree, Alex Smith, will oversee client relationships and head of strategy at UM Melbourne, David Hearn, will oversee strategy across the merged business as joint MP.
Henry Tajer, IPG Mediabrands executive chairman, said: “MBThree was created in September 2011 out of UM primarily to focus on our media partnership with Coles. The business has been a runaway success not just with Coles but it has won its own clients such as Moose Enterprise and Bauer.
“UM Melbourne has also made strong headway and is without doubt a key player in the market with top-class clients including Kmart, Target, Australia Post and L'Oreal. A merger of the two agencies makes sense as we plan for future growth.”
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