The Company is a group of advertising and specialized marketing and communication
services companies that together represent one of the largest resources of advertising
and marketing expertise in the world. With offices and other affiliations in more
than 100 countries,
Advertising and Specialized Marketing and Communications Services Businesses
In the last five years, the Company has grown to become one of the world's
largest groups of global marketing services companies, providing its clients
with communications and marketing expertise in three broad areas:
* Advertising, which includes advertising and media management;
* Marketing Communications, which includes direct marketing, database and customer
relationship
management, public relations, sales promotion, event marketing, on-line marketing,
corporate and brand identity, brand consultancy and healthcare marketing; and
* Marketing Services, which includes sports and entertainment marketing, corporate
meetings and events, retail marketing and other marketing and business services.
The Company is currently organized into four global operating groups. Three
of these groups, McCann Erickson WorldGroup ("McCann"), The FCB Group
and The Partnership, provide a comprehensive array of global communications
and marketing services. Each offers a distinctive range of solutions for the
Company's clients. The fourth global operating group, The Interpublic Sports
& Entertainment Group ("SEG"), focuses on sports marketing and
event planning activities. In addition to these groups, the Company also includes
a group of leading stand-alone companies that provide their clients with a full
range of advertising and/or marketing communications services.
The Company believes this organizational structure allows it to provide comprehensive
solutions to clients, enables stronger organic growth among all its operating
companies and allows it to bring improved operating efficiencies to its organization.
McCann Erickson WorldGroup was founded on the global strength and quality of
McCann, one of the world's leading advertising agencies. It includes companies
spanning advertising, media, customer relationship management, events, sales
promotion, public relations, on-line marketing communications and healthcare
communications. Launched in late 1997, McCann has expanded rapidly to become
one of the world's leading networked marketing communications groups, now working
with more than 25 key worldwide clients in three or more disciplines and with
more than 40 US clients in two or more disciplines. McCann Erickson WorldGroup
includes the following companies:
* McCann Erickson Worldwide (advertising),
* Universal McCann Worldwide (media planning and buying),
* MRM Partners Worldwide (direct/customer relationship management; on-line
marketing communications through Zentropy),
* Momentum Worldwide (event marketing/sponsorship/sales promotion), and
* Torre Lazur McCann Healthcare WorldWide (healthcare advertising and marketing).
The FCB Group is a single global integrated network centered on Foote, Cone
& Belding Worldwide and its advertising, direct marketing and sales promotion
capabilities. This group also includes the following specialized services:
* FCBi (direct and digital marketing),
* Marketing Drive Worldwide (integrated promotional marketing),
* R/GA (web design and development),
* FCB HealthCare (healthcare marketing), and
* The Hacker Group (customer acquisition direct marketing).
The Partnership, a global, client-driven creative leader, is anchored on the
quality advertising reputation of Lowe & Partners Worldwide. The Partnership
provides collaboration across a global group of independently managed networks
with creative and executional capabilities across all disciplines. The partners
seek to preserve their uniqueness while creating the ability to interconnect
seamlessly to better service clients. Partner companies include:
* Lowe & Partners Worldwide (advertising),
* Lowe Healthcare Worldwide (healthcare marketing),
* Draft (direct and promotional marketing),
* Zipatoni (promotional marketing),
* Mullen (advertising), and
* Dailey & Associates (advertising).
The Interpublic Sports & Entertainment Group focuses on sports marketing
and event planning activities. SEG was formed during the second quarter of 2002
through a carve-out from the Company's other operating groups of related operations.
It includes:
* Octagon (sports marketing),
* Motorsports, and
* Entertainment PR (Bragman Nyman Cafarelli and PMK/HBH).
Through March 1, 2004 Jack Morton Worldwide was included as a component of
SEG.
The Company is currently evaluating the manner in which SEG and its component
parts are managed and reported. In January 2004, Interpublic sold the four motorsports
circuits owned by its Brands Hatch Circuits unit to MotorSport Vision Limited
for approximately $26 million. As a result of the sale, Interpublic's remaining
interest in Motorsports consists of its obligations related to the Formula One
British Grand Prix and the lease of the Silverstone track.
Independent Agencies
Interpublic also includes a group of leading stand-alone companies that provide
their clients with a full range of advertising and/or marketing communications
services and partner with the Company's global operating groups as needed. These
include:
* Campbell Ewald,
* Deutsch,
* Hill Holliday,
* The Martin Agency,
* Carmichael-Lynch,
* Gotham,
* MAGNA Global (advertising media negotiations and television program development),
* Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Golin/Harris International and DeVries Public
Relations (public relations),
* FutureBrand,
* Initiative Media (media planning and buying), and
* Jack Morton Worldwide.
Company's largest clients included General Motors Corporation, Johnson &
Johnson, Microsoft, Nestle and Unilever. While the loss of the entire business
of any one of the Company's largest clients might have a material adverse effect
upon its business, the Company believes that it is unlikely that the entire
business of any of these clients would be lost at the same time, because the
Company represents several different brands or divisions of each of these clients
in a number of geographical markets, in each case through more than one of the
Company's agency systems.