“There is no doubt that the introduction of GroupM will greatly strengthen our position in the industry and equip us to effectively drive the integration of all media channels especially with the growing interest of digital as a future trend,” said Sabry Haniz, Country Head of GroupM Sri Lanka.

“Sri Lanka is poised for growth, and we believe that GroupM through Mindshare and Maxus today, and MEC and Mediacom in the future can help grow brands,” said Vikram Sakhuja, Chief Executive, GroupM, South Asia.

Mindshare, hitherto a division of the JWT ad agency, will now be part of GroupM. Till now GroupM was present through Mindshare.

Maxus, another GroupM Agency was also formally launched in the island.

GroupM said it is the world’s largest advertising media company in terms of billing handling over 32 percent of the world’s media billings.

It is has over 17,000 employees and 400 global offices in 81 countries.

GroupM was formed in 2003 by WPP Group to serve as the parent company for all its media agencies including Mindshare, Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, Xaxis and Outrider.

WPP owns advertising agencies like Grey, JWT, Mindshare, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and Y&R.