Another media-buying firm is getting into the entertainment business.
WPP Group’s media agency Mediaedge:cia has launched a division to handle entertainment content development for the agency’s advertising clients.
The division, dubbed MEC Entertainment, follows the path forged by WPP sibling MindShare, whose December 2003 alliance with TV network ABC to create TV shows featuring WPP ad clients pioneered branded entertainment (Xtra, Dec. 4, 2003). (Omnicom quickly followed suit, forming an entertainment division the following month (Xtra, Jan. 20, 2004).) MindShare and Mediaedge:cia are both part of WPP’s media management unit, GroupM, along with MediaCom and MAXUS.
Mediaedge:cia has tapped Chet Fenster to run MEC Entertainment as managing partner-director of content creation. Fenster will identify creative opportunities for client brands across all content platforms; he will split his time between MEC’s offices in New York and Los Angeles. Fenster had been head of program development for music network FUSE, and earlier was part of the ESPN team that launched the sports network’s first original movie. Fenster founded his own production firm, Kinetic Productions, before joining ESPN.
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