Hong Kong – May 22^th 2013 – MEC, a leading media agency, today announced the appointment of Michael Beecroft as Head of Trading for Asia Pacific.

Michael will report to Stephen Li, CEO for Asia Pacific and Keith Tiley Global Head of Trading. He’ll be based in Hong Kong. Michael was previously Global Head of Digital Trading, based in London. He replaces David Primmer who moves into a key regional role on Colgate Palmolive.

In his new role, Michael will be responsible for managing and delivering MEC’s world-class trading service and product to clients. Michael will work closely with Keith’s global trading team, local market trading heads and the GroupM trading community to develop and enhance the agency’s trading performance across all markets in Asia Pacific.

Stephen Li, commented on the appointment: “Asia Pacific remains a critical growth region for many of our international clients and trading is a fundamental cornerstone of our business. Michael’s appointment enables us to develop a strong, integrated trading competency within Asia Pacific. Michael is an accomplished professional with a unique background. His deep expertise in digital, trading and business development will be invaluable for our teams and we look forward to his innovative solutions for our clients and agency partners.”

About Michael Beecroft

Michael has been with MEC for 11 years. He started his early career at Mediapolis and then Mediavest as a TV buyer, but he found his true home when he joined the newly formed MEC UK in 2002 to manage the agency's then biggest account United International Pictures.

As MEC UK's growth accelerated of over the following decade, Mike established himself as a highly adaptable part of the team and advanced to take on senior trading as well as client leadership responsibilities. He was invited join MEC UK's management board in 2007 and at the same time he became MEC's first Head of Digital trading, working closely with GroupM to create market leadership partnerships and applications of technology and data.

In 2009 Mike moved to MEC's Global Team as Global Head of Digital Trading, a first within GroupM.

The latest chapter in Mike's MEC adventure now brings him to Asia where he takes responsibility for all MEC's trading across the APAC region.

MEC, a leading global media agency, today announced it has been awarded a Project Isaac from Adweek in the ‘Human Resource – Best Practice’ category for its “Inspire Happiness” course, a 6-week training program aimed at teaching its talent skills and techniques to increase their levels of happiness.

Launched in September 2012, the course has already show concrete signs of enhancing employee development, both on a personal and professional level.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by Adweek for the launch of our happiness curriculum,” said Marla Kaplowitz, CEO, MEC North America. “This acknowledgment not only highlights our commitment to nurturing and inspiring our talent in new and creative ways, but showcases our drive to bring innovative thinking and techniques to market, strengthening our ability to deliver maximum results across the agency as well as our clients’ businesses. A special thanks to those participants of the pilot course who are already reaping the benefits of a happier mindset.”

The Adweek Project Isaac Awards were conceived in 2013 to cast a celebratory light on the smartest inventions across the media, marketing and technology sectors. As the industry continues to transform at a rapid pace, genuine invention, rather than innovation, has become crucial to advancing brands and businesses past the inertia of traditional models and modes. Project Isaac recognizes these outstanding achievements.

MEC launched its second round of the “Inspire Happiness” training course in April 2013.

Tino Krause will report directly to Matthias Brüll, CEO and he will join the agency’s Management Board, based in Dusseldorf.

In this newly created role, Tino will be responsible for the operations of MEC across their offices and will oversee client leadership to drive new business.

Matthias Brüll commented, “We are very happy to have Tino join our team, he is an experienced communications professional and his mix of skills will help MEC continue to develop and grow our business as well as deliver excellence in client service. Tino is another great example of our commitment to investing in our people to delight our clients.”

Tino Krause joins from Telefónica Germany, where he was Head of Brand Management. Prior to this he was Head of Media, CRM & Direct Communication at Audi AG. Previously, he was Group Head at GroupM Munich office working for clients such as Audi, HypoVereinsbank and Escada.

MEC a leading global media agency today announced the launch of CookieCutter™, a proprietary data platform designed to cut through massive amounts of cookie-level data to uncover the true value of digital media for marketers.

“Every day, more and more marketers are struggling to understand the true impact digital channels have on their sales,” commented Theresa LaMontage,Head of Analytics and Insight, MEC. “The digital ecosystem is immensely complex, and last click methods have proven insufficient in maximizing the ROI of digital marketing campaigns. CookieCutter™ is game changing in its ability to distill cookies into meaningful, results-driven insights and information.”

For several years, marketers have addressed digital attribution by using third party vendors, with limited involvement from media agencies to ensure quality data output. With no standard attribution methodology, a “one-size-fits-all” approach is employed by vendors, leaving no room for flexibility or customization based on marketers’ unique needs.

The launch of CookieCutter™brings digital attribution modeling into a media agency environment, effectively centralizing data management and laying the foundation for a more holistic media planning process.

CookieCutter^TM is designed to process millions of cookie-level records sourced from marketers’ various digital data sources in a matter of seconds. The data is then synthesized in MEC’s statistical modeling environment. The results from these models reveal which consumer touchpoints are most important through the digital media mix journey.

The methodology for this proprietary platform is grounded in sophisticated modeling techniques which quantify digital ad exposure while controlling the interaction between online and offline channels.

LaMontagne added, “With an increasing number of clients expressing the need to quantify digital media’s ROI, there’s been an explosion of digital attribution vendors. We recognized this as an opportunity to provide a new, scalable and adaptive solution that takes the nuances of a marketer’s business into account. At MEC, we believe in a consultative approach to supporting a business’ budgeting decisions; CookieCutter™ is a manifestation of this approach. We have invested in expert digital data specialists and statisticians who work hand-in-hand with our planners and clients to provide more streamlined reporting and faster recommendations to improve the actionability of results.”

“What makes CookieCutter™ different from competitive platforms is that our technology is designed to support our approach,” said Marla Kaplowitz, CEO of MEC North America. “It is fast, yet flexible. It’s not simply producing canned results;the platform is designed to produce analytics datasets which allow our integrated teams to build truly tailored solutions to answer our clients’ evolving objectives. We are thrilled to officially offer this best-in-class attribution to clients across MEC’s portfolio to ensure we are maximizing the ROI of their media investments.”

The launch of CookieCutter™ represents MEC’s continued comittment to providing clients a clear competitive advantage with consumer data-centric media planning and thought-leadership.

MEC, a leading media agency has appointed Jude Ryan, as Senior Partner, Lead Statistical Methods to join its robust Analytics and Insight practice in North America.

In this new position, Jude will be responsible for overseeing the Business Sciences team, playing a key role in advancing the quantitative skills across the agency’s A&I discipline. He will also be focused on applying his extensive programming acumen to the development of new modelling and planning tools. Jude will report directly to Theresa LaMontagne, Managing Partner, Analytics & Insight, North America.

Jude brings to MEC over twenty years of experience in marketing and data analytics honing his skills through positions at Ipsos/MMA, Marketshare, UBS, and Digitas, among others. Prior to joining MEC, Jude served as VP, Innovation at Ipsos/MMA, and Director of Analytics at MarketShare, where he developed statistical modeling, simulation and optimization tools that helped to advance its offering in the market.

Speaking on his appointment, Theresa said: “CMOs everywhere are trying to navigate today’s highly fragmented and ROI-driven media landscape. At MEC, we are at the forefront of analytics, continuing to deliver best in class insights and tools to help answer clients’ business questions. Jude’s breadth of experience across categories such as Finance, Retail, and CPG combined with his extensive knowledge of analytical techniques will help drive innovation for our agency and clients.”

Jude has been integral to the implementation of cutting edge methodologies in statistics, econometrics, and machine learning, as well as the development of statistical modeling tools, systems and platforms; tools for simulation and optimization; and reporting systems.

“MEC is a world renowned media agency that provides superior and innovative analytics solutions to its clients. I look forward to joining its growing A&I team, as well as working across the agency’s various disciplines to ensure we continue to provide clients with superior and innovative analytical solutions,” commented Jude.

Jude has a Ph.D. (ABD) in Finance and Applied Economics from Rutgers University; an MS in Information Systems Management from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and an MBA, Finance and Applied Statistics, from Rutgers.