WPP Group
From Free net encyclopedia
WPP Group plc(Template:Lse) (Template:Nasdaq), based in London, is the world's second largest (in 1992, it was the largest) advertising agency and media planning and buying group - Omnicom Group is currently number one. In addition to advertising, its portfolio includes companies in research and consulting, public relations, lobbying, branding & identity, specialty communications. Its self-conceived characterization is a "parent company", able to bring together the right combination of capabilities to serve a client's analytic and creative brand marketing needs.
The founder is Sir Martin Sorrell - a man who brought financial discipline to the world of advertising. He started his career in advertising at Saatchi & Saatchi.
WPP Group's advertising agency holdings include the Grey Global Group, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Young & Rubicam, and JWT (formerly known as J. Walter Thompson Co.). Its public relations company holdings include Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Burson-Marsteller, and Cohn & Wolfe. Its media planning/buying company holdings include Mediaedge:cia, Mindshare, MediaInsight and Maximize. It's research companies, forming a separate umbrella group know as the Kantar Group [1], comprise BMRB[2], Diagnostic Research/Added Value, IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau)[3], Millward Brown[4] and Research International[5] to name a few. More recently, in a drive to streamline processes and save costs, Kantar fused the operational groups within the UK, US and Canada to form The Operations Centre, serving all Kantar research agencies.
The company's name derives from "Wire & Plastic Products", as it was originally a manufacturer of wire baskets.
WPP Group trades on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: WPP) and the Nasdaq (symbol: WPPGY).