CBS Casts Eye On Promotion
Promotion agencies owned by CBS Radio, including New York-based WINS Promotion Group, are changing to a single name as the CBS division positions its agency business for national growth.
WINS, and Plus Marketing, Dallas, will operate under the new name The CBS Radio Promotions Group. The radio division opened a Los Angeles office six months ago which will carry the name, and it will open offices at CBS Radio-owned stations in Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Boston, says Michael Barnett, director of WINS.
“We can open branch offices faster because we have the real estate at local CBS-owned stations. We hope to open 20 to 30 offices in the next two to three years,” says Barnett.
Each office will have its own director with no senior management structure above the promotional agency business except the existing management of the CBS radio division, says Barnett.
WINS placed 41st on promo’s top 100 ranking, jumping up from No. 75 in 1997, propelled by 1,900 percent revenue growth over the past two years. Its 1997 net revenue was $2.1 million. Plus Marketing ranked 63rd with revenue of $1.2 million.
Barnett said the name change “sends a signal that we have evolved over the past three years from being a new business arm for 1010 WINS (New York’s all-news radio station) into a very entrepreneurial, media-owned, promotion agency” with capabilities that extend past a single radio station.
CBS Radio Promotions clients include Duane Reade drug stores, Weight Watchers, Arthur Andersen, and Nabisco.
