Apr 25, 2007 6:06 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Betsy Spethmann

Michael Harris

IPG has sold the U.S. operations of Marketing Drive Worldwide to private investors, and folded its overseas operations into Draftfcb.

KB Holdings, an agency group run by Chicago promotion veterans Kevin Berg and Vince Parrinello, bought Marketing Drive from Interpublic Group of Cos. on April 15 for an undisclosed sum.

KB made a bid for the business after Marketing Drive’s sister shop, Draft Worldwide, merged last fall with Foote, Cone & Belding to form Draftfcb. Marketing Drive had been aligned with FCB before its merger with Draft. That merger left the struggling Marketing Drive without an ad agency sibling, a weak player in IPG’s portfolio strategy of aligning ad and promotion shops to support each other.

“We all felt this [sale] was the best opportunity for us,” said Marketing Drive spokesperson Gretchen Mullen.

Marketing Drive joins KB’s stable of promotion agencies, alongside Legacy Marketing Partners, Premium Surge Promotions, and Mess Marketing, all Chicago. Legacy is an event-marketing shop that Berg and Parrinello built from the event marketing business they bought from Draft in 2004. Premium Surge is a premiums business that Draft started, then sold to Berg and Parrinello. Mess Marketing is a startup branding shop.

Marketing Drive’s U.S. offices, with a combined staff of 145, keep the Marketing Drive name. Michael Harris, who had been Marketing Drive president before the acquisition, was promoted to CEO to oversee the five offices in Norwalk, Boston, Bentonville, Chicago and Minneapolis. A sixth office, in San Francisco, becomes part of Draftfcb, along with Marketing Drive’s operations in Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Indonesia and Russia, Mullen said.

Marketing Drive’s former CEO, Dean Buresh, joins Draftfcb. He is expected to retire later this year. Chief creative officer Gene Schmiel remains, reporting to Harris.

Marketing Drive keeps its general managers in each office, with plans to hire a general manager for Norwalk to take over day-to-day duties there from Harris. The other general managers are Craig Millon (Boston), Shannon Shoptaw (Bentonville), Chris Stavenjord (Chicago) and Gretchen Parker (Minneapolis).

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