Publicis overhauls Leo Burnett

Global - Publicis Groupe will roll out a new agency model for Leo Burnett in the US in the first quarter of 2008, with an Asia and global roll out to follow should the US exercise be successful.

The new collaborative model will be based on a state-of-art central services operation, 'The Insight Factory', an aggregation of "some of the most powerful tools and talent in the industry". The operation will be sourced from Leo Burnett and Arc, SMG and Digitas.

A new management board has been named to oversee the activation of the new model involving Tom Bernardin, chairman and CEO for Leo Burnett Worldwide, Renetta McCann, global CEO for Starcom MediaVest Group, and David Kenny, chairman and CEO for Digitas.

"In today's opt-out world of consumer choice and control, clients need deeper, more measurable and more actionable insights to engage individuals at the right time and place, with the right content. Human insights elevate the creative product, and when that product is infused with digital expertise and delivered through state-of-the-art production, the results will be outstanding. Leo will be adding to this offering unparalleled data and analytics to give clients an ability to predict as well as measure results, all while giving them customised service teams they can access through a single source," Maurice Lévy, chairman and CEO for Publicis Groupe said in a statement.