FH deputy chairman Marc Moninski will become chief executive of the as-yet-unnamed agency when it launches in January 2004.
‘This is the start of a period of group building. We expect to make a similar announcement in another sector next year,’ said FH chief executive Neil Hedges.
The consumer agency will begin with a ten-strong team based at FH’s central London headquarters. ‘We have begun an aggressive recruitment drive for senior management, including a managing director, and middleweight consultants,’ said Hedges. ‘We are serious about this, and we will be targeting major mass-marketed consumer brands.’
The agency’s client base will feed off FH’s parent, the Omnicom-owned AMV Group, the UK’s biggest ad agency. ‘Fishburn Hedges is currently involved in the pitch process to handle consumer PR for Boots, which is served by AMV,’ said Hedges.
‘But we consider these opportunities as icing on the cake for the new agency, which will seek to build its contracts organically, because this is FH’s heritage.’
The shop will be a wholly owned agency under a different name and will service firms with FMCG brands. It has AMV’s full backing.
Moninski said: ‘We want to bring to the consumer market the approach that has been the bedrock of Fishburn Hedges’s success.
‘The new agency will be ideas-driven, but we believe we can differentiate ourselves with an extra focus on relevance and delivery.’
