NEW YORK: Ogilvy PR managing director and global research head
David Michaelson has left the agency to set up on his own.
The as-yet unnamed research company has three clients and billings of
$1.5 million. Among the new customers are Israeli telecom
equipment manufacturer Comberse, and Virginia PR firm The Martin
Agency.
Michaelson explained: "I've always been an entrepreneur. I had run my
own firm before and enjoyed the freedom."
Michaelson said his firm would help companies identify the right
messages they should send. One method of understanding those messages,
he said, was to define attitudes among different groups of society to
such areas as finance, for example. The practice is called
psychographics.
Before joining Ogilvy, Michaelson was a managing director at GCI Group,
and a director of research at Burson-Marsteller.
He has been replaced at Ogilvy by Marjorie White.