• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 16, 2012

Sasha Savic, who joined MediaCom USA in April as CEO, is quickly putting his stamp on the agency. The WPP shop is merging its digital and innovations operations with its branded content unit into a new division called MediaCom Beyond Advertising (MBA).

The restructuring, which has been implemented in other Mediacom regions, is designed to better align the agency and its clients with the way people are consuming media today. With that realignment the shop intends to help its clients forge stronger relationships with consumers through innovative uses of content and media.

The two executives who have been running the separate operations will jointly run the new division, both reporting to Savic. Sloan Broderick has been named director of MBA Innovation. For the past four years Broderick has overseen the shop’s digital and innovations efforts. Adam Pincus has been named director of MBA Ideas. Previously, he was director of content at Mediacom USA, a post he had held since 2007.

“Consumers are harder to reach than ever, and the old ‘push’ model of advertising is morphing into more of a conversation, or shared experience, between brands and their customers,” said Savic. “Attention is the new currency for brands.” 

The two units began working together before the merger, and the agency cites the Untitled Jersey City Project as an example of the kind of work they will do as a merged entity. That program was an on-air partnership between client Audi and cable network FX that promoted the carmaker in a series of 2-minute episodes that aired during breaks in the network’s Sunday night movie last fall.

The new division is also developing a big sponsorship for client Volkswagen that will tie into the upcoming 25th anniversary of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week series.

The reorganization was driven in part by agency research that showed that nearly half of the audience online that is consuming content will also share their content experiences via social media.

On average, the agency research found, consumers gobble up content from 30 brands per month. That’s an opportunity to create “impactful and lasting bonds between client and customer,” the shop concluded.