For Immediate Release

GROUPM ADDS OUTRIDER TO FAMILY OF MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS AGENCIES, CREATING DEDICATED SEARCH CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR MAXUS, MEDIACOM, MEDIAEDGE:CIA AND MINDSHARE

ST LOUIS (April 12, 2007)

Recognizing the growing role search marketing plays in the communications mix for advertisers, GroupM, the leading global media investment management operation and a division of WPP, announced today that Outrider, an industry-leading search marketing firm, is now a GroupM company. Outrider will serve as the dedicated global search marketing agency for MAXUS, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and MindShare, who combined are responsible for one-third of the world's media buying (source: RECMA July 2006).

The investment strategy of GroupM is to build resources in the areas of greatest focus for its clients and those which represent behavioral change among the customers.

"GroupM recognizes the increasing importance of search. In both brand-focused and transaction-focused communications, search allows consumers to declare their interests and intentions," said Rob Norman, CEO of GroupM Interaction. "And this requires that our clients achieve both prominence and relevance."

Founded as the first dedicated search marketing company more than 12 years ago, Outrider joined WPP in 2001 and provides advanced search strategies to more Fortune 500 companies than any other search agency. Clients include Microsoft, Xerox, AstraZeneca, Showtime and Chevron. In addition to search engine optimization and paid search strategies, Outrider's product offering has evolved with consumer and advertiser demand to include advanced strategies that enhance the search experience. This includes RSS feeds, blogs, local search, mobile search, video and image search, reputation management, multi-variate testing, social marketing, link activation, behavioral targeting, vertical search, click-to-call, click-to-play, site audits, cross-channel data analysis, client-facing search training, and more.

"By bringing together Outrider's expertise with the existing search experience within our communication planning agencies," said Norman, "we are establishing a search center of excellence that provides clients of GroupM companies with cross-channel strategy and search integration in order to fully maximize their marketing programs and create more targeted engagement opportunities for consumers."

In addition to its offices in St. Louis (North American headquarters), New York, Chicago, Seattle, and in 32 countries around the world, Outrider will have client service teams located on-site at MAXUS, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and MindShare. This distribution of talent dedicated to the agencies provides client service teams with the ability to integrate search into every aspect of communications strategy. Teams located in each agency will also secure the integrity of client data and ensure that integrated search strategy is developed in the context of the client's overall communications plan.

"As the dedicated search agency for GroupM companies, our clients not only experience the benefits of seamless agency relationships, but also the opportunity to understand the connection between their search media investment and their investment in other media channels," said Chris Copeland, Sr. Partner and Managing Director of Outrider.

Copeland added, "One client saw an overwhelming correlation between their national DRTV campaign and their search program. We found an 82 percent correlation between their search conversion rate and their DRTV program when GRPs passed a certain threshold. Another saw a 74 percent correlation between search activity and increased online display media spends."

"This empowers communications planning at all levels because it answers the question of what is my media doing for me."

About GroupM

GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including MAXUS, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and MindShare.

Our primary purpose is to maximise the performance of WPP's media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our shareholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions.

The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring unfair competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.

About Outrider

Outrider is a leading global search marketing agency, specializing in holistic, advanced search marketing strategies that are integrated with advertisers' cross-channel media planning. Regarded for their thought leadership and recognized by Forrester Research as a leader in search strategy, management and client service strengths, Outrider provides integrated search marketing and consumer-driven media strategy at the global, national and local-market level to category-leading clients including: AT&T, Dell, AstraZeneca, Showtime, Microsoft, Chevron, Diageo and more. Services include: organic search, paid search, advanced search strategy (social search, mobile search, local search, video search and more), analytics, conversion services (website optimization), creative services and consulting.

Outrider is a WPP company and a division of GroupM, WPP's media buying and planning arm responsible for 30% of the world's media buying. With North American headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., Outrider has offices in New York, Chicago, Seattle, and throughout the EMEA and APAC regions, creating the largest global footprint of any search agency with a network of 30 global offices serving more than 40 countries. www.outrider.com.

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