GroupM replaces MEC with Mediacom in Pakistan

GroupM has replaced MEC with Mediacom in Pakistan.

While a global realignment at GroupM resulted in the merger of Maxus and MEC to create Wavemaker, Fouad Husain, the CEO of GroupM Pakistan, decided to shift the entire MEC team to Mediacom.

In Pakistan, Mediacom will be led by Kashif Malik, previously the head of MEC since February 2016.

According to Husain, Mediacom's creation provides GroupM clients with new global planning capabilities.

"MediaCom clients will also be able to leverage parent company, GroupM’s specialist expertise, providing a dramatically more comprehensive service in areas such as digital, programmatic buying and analytics," he said.

Husain expressed optimism about the launch of Mediacom in helping enhance GroupM's brand and boost client grow.

"At Mediacom, we feel everything is connected," he said. "And that means a media agency has to think and operate in an entirely new way."

This isn't Mediacom's first appearance in Pakistan. Raihan Merchant, CEO of Brainchild Communications, operated Mediacom as an affiliate under the registered business name of Pak Media Communications since 1996, the same year Taher A. Khan formed Mindshare.

In 2010, when P&G and Coca-Cola globally left Mediacom for Starcom, Merchant discarded the WPP affiliate and purchased a Starcom affiliate as a means of retaining two of Pakistan's leading advertisers, operating the new affiliate under the new name of Brainchild Communications.

While most media agencies in Pakistan operate under an affiliate, GroupM Pakistan is the only one with ownership from WPP.