Blow for WPP as Joule head Michael Collins quits for indie mobile rival Adelphic
WPP is looking for a new boss for its mobile marketing agency Joule following CEO Michael Collins’ decision to join mobile ad start-up Adelphic.
Collins (left) helped to start Joule in 2007. Before that he was US General Manager for Refresh Mobile, once part of T-Mobile, and a partner at e-business consultancy USWeb/CKS.
COllins replaces Adelphic co-founder Changfeng Wang as CEO. Wang, who set up the business with Jennifer Lum after they had both worked at Google mobile ad network Quattro.
Collins’ departure is a blow for WPP which has recognised the importance of mobile but struggled to gain the same dominance in the area it has in media buying and related areas like out of home through Kinetic.
But Adelphic raised $10m in seed corn money last year and may turn into one of those tech companies that sells for a big, big price (earlier this week Yahoo bought Tumblr for around $1bn even though it still doesn’t make a profit).
Adelphic claims to help advertisers define the demographics of mobile users.
It would seem that the shit is hitting the fan at Joule with ECD Mark Silber committing “Gnome Suicide,” after telling Sir Martin he is a wanker for saying media is more important than creative. Or as the little bugger said at yet another conference… “We are all Math Men now, not Mad Men.” He certainly has a knack for cheering up the troops. There’s more on “AdScam,” including naked Kate Moss. Loverrrllly!
Cheers/George