Mediabrands' Geomentum Hires Sean Finnegan as CEO and Tony Bombacino as President/CMO

CHICAGO, Dec. 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Matt Freeman, Chief Executive Officer of Mediabrands Ventures, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG), today announced the appointments of Sean Finnegan as Chief Executive Officer and Tony Bombacino as President/Chief Marketing Officer at hyper-local marketing, media and performance agency Geomentum.

In addition to the significant investment Mediabrands has made over the past year into Geomentum's powerful and proprietary media performance technology, which will be widely available to clients and agencies in 2011, the two appointments affirm Geomentum's strategic position within the larger network. Geomentum works with multi-unit national retail and restaurant advertisers to plan, geo-target and buy advertising at the hyper-local store-level.

"With Geomentum expanding its sphere of influence in the digital world, Sean is exactly the talent that we need to lead the agency," said Matt Freeman, CEO of Mediabrands Ventures. "Sean and Tony are among the most prominent and influential digital executives in our business and their technology systems expertise and understanding of the dynamics of location-based digital solutions like local search, social and mobile make them a truly dynamic duo for Geomentum."

Working in collaboration with the extended Mediabrands network, Finnegan will expand Geomentum's business practice beyond its retail and media performance technology core to become a broader, integrated business unit working across digital and traditional hyper-local media platforms. Most recently President/Chief Digital Officer at Starcom MediaVest Group, Finnegan brings an extensive, twenty-year background in digital media to Geomentum. His experience will help the agency's roster of national clients become more relevant within the growing location-based digital marketing channels such as Groupon and Facebook Places.  

At SMG, Finnegan focused on driving the network's digital strategy and practice, leading development of digital communications, proprietary tools and technology applications. In his new role at Geomentum, Finnegan will broaden the agency's technology performance, using the agency's proprietary SaaS (software as a service) offering to make store-level media planning tangible for multi-unit regional and national clients that require local presence and marketing expertise.

"I'm thrilled to be joining Geomentum at such an exciting time of growth and expansion," said Sean Finnegan, CEO of Geomentum. "The hyper-local approach has come of age, and with Geomentum's world class clients, talent, assets and systems, we are able to capitalize on the ability to effectively deliver a welcomed marketing message to the 'home and heart' level."

Most recently Chief Marketing Officer at Restaurant.com, Bombacino led a team of professionals responsible for every aspect of marketing, branding and corporate communications for a number of business lines across a wide variety of media channels. In his new role at Geomentum, Bombacino will use his experience from both the agency and client sides of the marketing world to deepen the agency's analysis, predictive modeling, loyalty marketing and client service.

"The concept of hyper-local has existed for as long as humans have been in close proximity to others; and technology now enables us, as marketers, to consider the dynamics of time-shifting and place-shifting in our engagement strategies," said Tony Bombacino, President/CMO of Geomentum, "I'm excited to be joining a pioneer in the field at a time of rapid acceleration and importance."

Geomentum was named a "2010 Specialty Agency of the Year" by Media Magazine for its innovative media services and technology-enabled, store-level planning capabilities. The agency recently launched its Hyper-Local Network, along with its first partner, Mixpo, which enables zip code-level targeting and versioning of creative video advertisements.

About Sean Finnegan:

In his previous role as President/Chief Digital Officer at Starcom MediaVest Group, Sean Finnegan focused on driving the network's digital strategy and practice. In addition, he was responsible for forging digital communications products, proprietary tools and technology applications, inclusive of social and mobile media.

Prior to SMG, Finnegan was chief marketing officer of Vibrant Media, a worldwide video advertising network. Prior to joining Vibrant Media, Finnegan was the chief executive officer of OMG Digital, a unit of Omnicom Media Group. As head of OMG Digital, Finnegan led its global management team and developed functional services in digital investment, search, mobile, gaming, futures, analytics and ad operations.

Finnegan was named an AAF Advertising Hall of Achievement inductee (2006), an Advertising Age Media Maven, a Media All Star for Mediaweek Magazine, a MediaPost All Star, one of min magazine's 21 Most Intriguing People, and Internationalist Magazine Agency Innovator and OnMedia's Madison Avenue "IT" List. Sean is involved in many online advertising industry groups and associations, such as Google's Agency Advisory Council, the Facebook Customer Council, the 4As Digital CEO Board as well as a Board member of the popular South Asian Entertainment company, Desi Hits!

Beginning his career in the early 1990s at BBDO New York, Finnegan focused on spot TV buying and print planning. When the internet became commercial, he shifted his focus to new media, working at such interactive agencies as Darwin Digital (Zenith), APL Digital and JWT Digital. In 2001, Finnegan became Midwest Director of OMD Digital. Eventually Finnegan was promoted to lead OMD Digital nationally and relocated back to New York, a position he held for three years before forming OMG Digital.

About Tony Bombacino:

Tony Bombacino was most recently Chief Marketing Officer for Restaurant.com, the trusted source for restaurant information and savings.  Bombacino joined Restaurant.com in 2006 and led a team of professionals responsible for every aspect of marketing, branding and corporate communications across all channels and business lines.

Bombacino spent two years as the VP of Marketing & Client Services, helping build the successful search marketing firm, Resolution Media (an Omnicom Media Group Company).  As one of the first few employees, Bombacino held this leadership position as the company grew 10-fold in less than 18 months before its acquisition by Omnicom Media Group.  

Prior to these posts, Bombacino spent a number of years working on the client, agency and consulting sides of the marketing world.  Before Resolution Media he spent four years at United Airlines, the last two years developing successful marketing and promotional strategies for United's globally successful Mileage Plus loyalty program; the previous two years focusing on developing marketing strategies that would lead to record sales for united.com.

In his roles as marketing analyst and then marketing consultant at Analytics Innovations, Bombacino developed successful predictive models and marketing strategies that led to new levels of success for clients like Discover Card.

Bombacino is active on the CIMA board of directors as the VP of Academic Affairs, can be found speaking at various industry events and has written for respected industry publications such as iMediaConnection.com, DM News and Marketing Profs.com.

About Geomentum:

Own the Neighborhood! As the leading hyper-local marketing and media strategy and performance agency in the U.S., Geomentum helps marketers to navigating the challenges and opportunities leading up to the local point of sale. Powered by a network that plans and places more than $2 billion in hyper-local media annually, Geomentum leverages proprietary geospatial technology and data for many of the largest marketers in the country, to deliver strategic marketing investment plans for tens of thousands of stores, engage millions of shoppers every week. Geomentum's Decision Support System is a desktop technology that enables retailers to plan, budget and activate multimedia plans at the hyper-local store level with refreshed results on a weekly basis for real-time decision making. From weather to drive-time and neighborhood demographics, Geomentum's technology is designed to detail and react to local changes to enhance the performance of marketing and media plans. To learn more about Geomentum, visit www.geomentum.com. 

SOURCE Geomentum