Miroma Group restructures and puts McDonald’s marketer in lead role

Media and leisure holding company Miroma Group is consolidating its various non-corporate businesses into a new division and has recruited a senior McDonald’s marketer to lead its commercial development strategy.

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The Miroma Ventures division will be led by McDonald’s UK senior marketing manager Richard Hirst.

Miroma Ventures will house a wide range of assets including Miroma Capital, which focuses on start-ups and underperforming media assets and is raising £50m to fund media acquisitions.

It also includes Miroma Leisure, which specialises in operating venues, working with turnaround companies and providing strategic consultancy in the leisure industry, and Miroma Music, an independent record label, artist management and production company.

The division also includes Mercury Media Science, a media investment service and BuyNowMedia, which sells media directly to small and medium-sized businesses.

Existing media assets such as US-based online fashion and lifestyle magazine Who What Wear will also sit in Miroma Ventures.

Hirst is currently responsible for franchise marketing, media planning and buying and digital marketing strategy for McDonald’s UK and is a former general manager of Busch-Media Group in the UK, the internal media planning and buying group for Anheuser Busch.

The launch of Miroma Ventures follows the addition of Sir David Michels, deputy chairman of Marks & Spencer and Christopher Mackenzie, former president of GE Capital Europe and a former WPP board director, to the Miroma Board as non-executive directors.

Miroma built its business on corporate barter, which allows brand owners to enhance their advertising campaigns by part-paying for media with their products or services.

Former head of global media at Procter & Gamble, Bernhard Glock, was named chairman of Miroma last year.

Read this Marketing Week feature on corporate barter

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