Update: OK! contacted us to say MediaCom will perform search engine optimisation on its content, but won’t author content for it…
Original: After closing its Media.Com digital media unit earlier this year, WPP’s MediaCom has now launched Beyond Advertising, a division designed to deliver not “marketing” but content (optimisation).
The agency has created its own editorial team, whose first client is Daily Express publisher Northern & Shell, NMA says. It will be authoring optimising landing pages for its OK! magazine about celebrities like Jordan and Paris Hilton for the publisher – an extension of the search deal N&S already has with MediaCom.
A media agency more, more commonly associated with buying ad space, creating content for news publishers is certainly a departure. Even NMA, which serves the online marketing community, is spooked, writing about the “dangers” in an editorial: “It might be a cost-saving exercise and good for Express if it increases traffic to the site, but media agencies weren