UniWorld starts-over, again

UniWorld Group, the country’s 3rd largest African-American advertising agency (according to the 2008 BE agency index) , has hired Mel Wilson as its director of interactive. Mr. Wilson brings a strong technology background to the position and is tasked with managing the interactive accounts of the agency. While the challenges involved with remaking the traditionally-oriented UniWorld into a more digitally nimble shop are immense, the bigger challenge for Mr. Wilson may simply be keeping his job long enough to implement those changes.

Mr Wilson is the 4th person to hold the position of interactive director at UniWorld in 4 years. He replaces Adam Goldman who was in the position for a little less than a year. The director of interactive reports to 78-year old agency founder and CEO Byron Lewis. While Mr. Wilson’s appointment may highlight the agency’s desire to keep a titular digital executive, it also hints at underlying issues with Mr. Lewis’s understanding of how to build digital capabilities within the agency. It further highlights the absence of any meaningful digital shops within the leading African-American ad agencies.

The three previous heads of the interactive group at UniWorld include Albert Thompson, Michael Johnson, and Adam Goldman. With each change, the strategic vision for digital within the agency along with creative execution and agency momentum are disrupted. The impact on campaign continuity can only be guessed although several past employees have stated that with each management change client campaigns come to a stand still. Before Mr. Wilson can attempt to transform UniWorld into Agency 2.0 he will have to figure out what made his 3 predecessors depart. Lets hope he can do that in the next nine months, because he may have very little time left after that.