May 22, 2007 6:05 PM, PROMO Xtra, By Betsy Spethmann

Farrell    

OgilvyAction has absorbed sister shop Einson Freeman, adding 11 staffers and clients including Unilever, IBM, HBO, Lifetime and T.J. Maxx parent TJX.

WPP Group, which owns both agencies, finalized the merger yesterday.

Einson Freeman’s small staff, including top three executives, join OgilvyAction as part of the deal.

Jean Mojo, who had been CEO of Einson Freeman, becomes managing partner for consumer promotion at OgilvyAction. Einson’s chief creative officer, Larry Durst, becomes executive creative director for consumer promotion, and Tracy Lanza, who had been director of client services at Einson, becomes director of account service for consumer promotion. All three will be based in OgilvyAction’s New York office.

"We are thrilled about this new partnership and our combined ability to turn consumers into shoppers and shoppers into buyers," Mojo said in a statement.

The merger is the latest in a series of transitions for OgilvyAction, following its January restructuring that consolidated marketing services, led by 141 Worldwide (PROMO Xtra, Jan. 5, 2007). The division absorbed promo shop BEN Marketing, aligned more closely with sister ad shop Ogilvy & Mather, and adopted the OgilvyAction name.

Last year, 141 Worldwide ranked No. 31 in the 2006 PROMO 100 with estimated 2005 net revenues of $49 million, up an estimated 17% from 2003.

Einson Freeman is one of the oldest promotion agencies in the country, founded in 1909 as a P-O-P printer. The agency has maintained those retail-marketing roots, from account-specific marketing work for Pepsi-Cola Co. in the 1970s to creating the industry’s first watch-and-win sweepstakes in 1989, for CBS. The agency broke new ground in 1994 when IBM named Einson Freeman its global agency-of-record for promotions, a first for the industry.

In 2004, Einson Freeman took the top EMMA in PROMO’s annual competition for its groundbreaking work on AT&T Wireless’ tie-in to “American Idol,” letting fans vote by text message for their favorite performer.

“Einson Freeman has a long history of helping clients create innovative ways to activate their brands," said Jay Farrell, OgilvyAction CEO-North America, in a statement. “They have consistently been recognized with the industry's biggest awards for innovations such as … AT&T Wireless' promotion with American Idol which led to the explosion of text messaging in the United States.”

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