iProspect Founder Takes New Global Role
iProspect founder and former CEO Fredrick Marckini has been named chief global search officer for parent agency group Isobar.
iProspect founder and former CEO Fredrick Marckini has been named chief global search officer for parent agency group Isobar.
Isobar, the global agency group that includes pay-per-click search marketing agency iProspect, is mounting a global push to expand the iProspect brand and best practices globally, beginning with its digital agencies in 36 locales worldwide.
To accomplish this ambitious plan, Isobar has named iProspect founder and former CEO Fredrick Marckini to be its chief global search officer. Taking the reins from Marckini will be Rob Murray, who has served as iProspect’s president for the past eight years.
The move comes two years after leading pay-per-click search marketing agency iProspect was acquired by Aegis Group and wrapped up in its Isobar brand. The deal called for Isobar to pay $32 million in cash up front, and up to $18 million in deferred cash over the next two years based on performance.
Now that the two-year earn-out is complete, Marckini and Murray had the option of leaving, but chose to stay in expanded roles, Marckini told ClickZ.
“I’m very confident in the management team we’ve built. We have the longest-tenured management team of any search agency, and I leave control of iProspect’s U.S. team firmly in their hands,” he said.
Marckini will leave day-to-day operations behind, as well as his role as a U.S.-based ambassador for the company to focus on building up global search practices under the Isobar umbrella. Isobar currently operates in 36 countries, and most of those already have some kind of search practice. Marckini’s job will be to expand those offices, bringing to them the tools and best practices iProspect has built in the U.S. over the past 11 years.
Many of the global search practices will be branded with the iProspect name, an approach already taken in The Netherlands since 2005 and in Sweden since 2006. With Marckini’s new focus, the process will be greatly accelerated, with several more iProspect agency roll-outs planned for the coming year, including some in Eastern and Western Europe and Asia.
Marckini will be based in Isobar’s offices in Boston, a few miles away from iProspect’s headquarters in Watertown. He will also have a team in London, though he quipped that his new office will really be on an airplane, since his job will require frequent travel to the various Isobar offices.