Former Hewlett Packard CMO Michael Mendenhall has joined Lipman Advertising as president and COO. The firm also named Andrew Spellman CEO and said it will add private equity capabilities to its operations and expand its services beyond luxury brands.
“Lipman is a storied company with excellence around luxury categories,” said Mendenhall. “They’ve created iconic campaigns and they come with great, deep creative talent.”
Spellman cofounded Fireman Capital Partners and served as a VP at Goldman Sachs. David Lipman, son of agency founder Bob Lipman, will become chairman and CCO after previously running the agency’s day-to-day operations as chairman.
Mendenhall said the new leadership team will help the company build a scaled, integrated marketing approach that can be used for marketing and advertising as well as transactions and customer service.
“This is what all marketers today are looking for,” said Mendenhall. “They’re looking for consistency and integration to provide an end-to-end integrated approach.”
Mendenhall was SVP and CMO at HP before he left the company in January. Previously, he spent 17 years at The Walt Disney Co. as EVP of marketing and communications for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. He also served as the general chair of the 32nd John Caples International Awards, which took place last March.
Lipman now has private equity capabilities, Mendenhall added. The company will provide marketing services to public companies but also “on the equity piece we are looking at entrepreneurs and start-ups to invest in [who might need] help with marketing and branding,” he said. Lipman will also “barter and take equity in a start-up to provide advertising services,” said Mendenhall.
He added that Lipman had closed deals in all three business categories in the past three weeks. He declined to name the companies who had signed on for Lipman’s services.
Mendenhall said the company will expand its clientele beyond luxury brands.
“With my background with HP, I dealt with financial services, transportation, technology and media entertainment. At HP, I touched every vertical,” he said. “[At Lipman], we have to understand those industries. We will scale our approach with capital and provide that end-to-end [capability] to other verticals outside of just luxury.”
Mendenhall’s move to Lipman was first reported by PRWeek.
Correction: A previous version of this story misindentified Mendenhall’s role at Lipman. He will serve as COO.
