DUBAI: Porter Novelli has made a move into the Middle East with the creation of Impact Porter Novelli.
DUBAI: Porter Novelli has made a move into the Middle East with the creation of Impact Porter Novelli.
The new firm is the result of a joint venture with its related local ad and PR company, Impact/BBDO, which has regional offices in Jeddah, Riyadh, Beirut, Cairo, Kuwait City and Dubai. The company was founded in 1971 by Alain Khouri.
Both companies are part of the Omnicom Group, with Porter Novelli falling under the Diversified Agency Services (DAS) division.
Omnicom is the second largest advertising conglomerate in the world, reporting a net income of dollars 127.4 million in the second quarter of 2000.
It was knocked from its number one position by WPP earlier this year, when the latter company announced its takeover of Young & Rubicam.
Though primarily an advertising group, Omnicom has recently acquired a number of independently operating PR, marketing services and communication operations. The majority have been grouped under its Diversified Agency Services division, headed globally by president Michael Birkin from New York.
Impact/BBDO is part of BBDO Worldwide, one of Omnicom's advertising network companies. The joint endeavor between one of Omnicom's established ad agency networks and one of DAS's PR brands would only recently have been a rare occurrence. However, crossovers between DAS companies and Omnicom's agency networks - which also include DDB Worldwide and the more recent acquisition of TBWA Worldwide - are becoming more common.
