Shared services are on the drawing board for local advertising giant Phillips-Ramsey and a Cambridge, Mass.-based sister company focused on E-business marketing.
Zentropy Partners opened a division in San Diego on Feb. 14 and has been pitching clients, sometimes teaming up with Phillips-Ramsey.
Both companies are owned by the McCann Erickson WorldGroup, which belongs to Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. in New York City. McCann-Erickson bought Phillips-Ramsey in 1988.
Zentropy, while remaining independent from Phillips-Ramsey, has moved into a wing of the advertising agency’s Mission Valley offices, said Julie Johnson, Zentropy’s senior project manager.
Johnson ran her own Web development company in Los Angeles until joining Zentropy earlier this year.
Zentropy’s opening in San Diego was well timed, she said. Last year, Phillips-Ramsey had been planning to launch a similar interactive division, Johnson said.
However, in December, IGC announced its acquisition and reincarnation of Zentropy Partners. The company had previously been Zentropy Inc., which was founded in 1995.
Phillips-Ramsey’s plans then switched to starting a local Zentropy division.
Zentropy Partners has offices in Cambridge, Frankfurt and Hamburg in Germany, London, Los Angeles, Paris and Lyon in France, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis and Toronto.
Heading the enterprise in San Diego is managing director Mark Skeen, who had been doing E-business consulting with Phillips-Ramsey’s clients and other local companies. Skeen had worked for local companies Cyberworks and Price Partners, Johnson said.
Because of Skeen’s consulting work, Zentropy’s San Diego office started with several clients on board. Among them: Affinity Group, Inc. in Ventura, Motortrendauto.com in San Diego, and MyVp.com, which has a corporate office in San Diego and San Francisco, Johnson said.
Another current project is with an affiliate program for General Motors, Johnson said.
Zentropy and Phillips-Ramsey have begun pitching clients together, Johnson said.
“We’re in a growing stage here,” she explained, mentioning a hiring push.
“Once we get more established and get the ball rolling,” she said, “I’m sure that this is going to be a two-way road, where clients are coming to us for interactive (work) and want traditional marketing and branding solutions, and will have Phillips-Ramsey for that , and the other way around.”
Together, the companies offer a cohesive approach, which is increasingly important in the marketing industry, Johnson said.
“You want to share branding and marketing ideas across the board,” she said. “You really want your creative to tie in from your print to your online marketing and branding environment.”
