Initiative Media Gets a New Name

Western Initiative Media Worldwide said Friday it has changed its name--but that the media-buying company won’t be changing its Los Angeles address.

In a speech broadcast live from the company’s U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles to 1,500 employees nationwide, Chief Executive Louis M. Schultz said the company will be known as Initiative Media North America. The new name reflects the media-buying firm’s plan to expand beyond traditional media-buying services into allied fields, including a stronger presence in online and interactive advertising.

Schultz, who joined the company in early January, also dismissed a long-running rumor that the company would move its U.S. headquarters from Los Angeles to New York, home of its parent, Interpublic Group of Companies.

“I told employees that the headquarters is in Los Angeles and will remain in Los Angeles,” Schultz said in an interview. “I told them that we intend to grow the business--we’re a bullet train heading north, not south.”

Initiative Media’s growth plans include a heavier emphasis on online and nontraditional media services. “We’re now buying media for about 85 ‘dot-coms,’ so we know the interactive area is going to be increasingly important,” Schultz said.

About 85% of the company’s $5.4 billion in 1999 billings was driven by such traditional media as television and radio.

“In five years, we’ll expand nontraditional billings to the point that the ratio would drop to about 60-40,” Schultz said. The company buys advertising time and space on TV and in major newspapers for clients such as Walt Disney Co., AOL, Home Depot and Cisco.

The past year proved to be a tumultuous one for the company that founder Dennis Holt sold to Interpublic in 1994. Holt stepped down as chairman at the end of 1999, but he continues to serve as a consultant. Earlier in the year, about two dozen employees were laid off and some corporate-level executives moved to New York, fueling rumors of a headquarters move.

The firm, which has about 700 employees in Los Angeles, also generated unwanted publicity by engaging in a highly unusual public spat with former company President Michael E. Kassan over terms of Kassan’s employment contract.

Schultz, 55, described Friday’s meeting as forward-looking. In a reference to the layoffs, he said that “people had been worrying for some time that there were going to be more Black Fridays. I told them there’s no reason for us to be losing business, that it’s time to forget about what happened last year and get on with what we want to do.”