The media industry, after being blasted by the last two years of “underperforming” media assets, has launched a number of web services designed to help facilitate barter transactions. The latest in the foray is a company called Midas Exchange, sponsored by GroupM.
WPP said The Midas Exchange will initially operate in the U.S., and that it was formed at the request of its clients. It will be managed as part of GroupM, and will be headed by Kathy Kladopoulos, who has been named president the unit. Most recently Kladopoulos worked as executive vice president and managing director of Carat Trade, a division of Aegis Group, which she launched nine years ago.
WPP’s high profile leap into the barter media field is interesting, because the holding company has a mixed history in the practice. J. Walter Thompson, before it was acquired by WPP, has one of the most famous scandals in the history of barter media, when during the 1980s, the head of the agency’s barter syndication unit was found to be billing clients for millions of dollars in TV advertising credits that never actually aired.
We congratulate GroupM and hope that the company does not follow the steps that occurred in the 1980’s.
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