NEW YORK — Weber Shandwick is taking the wraps off Sawmill, which it is billing as a full-service advertising agency.
Sawmill was "carved from the lineage" of Weber's specialty issue and advocacy advertising shop Sawyer Miller with the goal of providing clients with services from planning to activation, said Michelle Selesky, Weber's SVP of global corporate communications.
At the start of next year, Sawyer Miller President Tim Ryan and multiplatform campaign chief creative officer Josh Rose will co-lead Sawmill, overseeing 50 staffers in offices in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Chicago and Seattle.
Services will include creative, account management, strategic planning, production and paid media strategy, working across broadcast, print, social, digital and mobile platforms.
"It used to be that ad agencies spawned PR shops; we’re flipping the model on its head," Selesky said.
The shop’s clients include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Healthcare.gov, and Spanish multinational Abengoa.
In the past, Weber has developed groups focused on areas that don't fall under traditional communications. Last March, it launched the Mediaco content creation and distribution unit, which aims to bring together content marketing and new media for clients.
Weber CEO Andy Polansky told PRWeek earlier this year that "Mediaco was a big engine from the financial perspective (in 2013), a game-changer that particularly fueled our success in consumer."
He added at the time that since 2010 Weber has tripled the number of employees who focus on digital.
This article first appeared on prweek.com/us.