CommonHealth and Einson Freeman Join Forces to Create Healthcare-Brand-Promotion Group.

PARSIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 1999--

EinsonHealth Taps Expertise of WPP's

Leading Healthcare-Communications and Brand-Promotion Units

CommonHealth today announced the launch of EinsonHealth, a joint venture of CommonHealth and Einson Freeman. CommonHealth and Einson Freeman belong to the Specialist Communications division of the WPP Group (LSE: WPPL.L;NASDAQ/ADR:WPPGY), the global communications-services company, reporting to Specialist Communications CEO John Zweig.

EinsonHealth will be based in Parsippany, New Jersey, the headquarters of CommonHealth, the world's largest healthcare-communications resource. It will leverage the combined equity of CommonHealth and Einson Freeman -- a global leader in promotion marketing -- to offer branded events, strategic partnerships/sponsorships, retail solutions that enhance point-of-purchase presence, and Internet solutions geared toward the development of health-brand communities.

John Hopper, managing partner/global client services at Einson Freeman, and a former executive with Unilever, Procter & Gamble and the MacManus Group, has been named managing partner of the new unit.

"The conventional term `promotion' is somewhat inadequate as a description of what EinsonHealth's unique offering is about," Mr. Hopper noted. "A better description is `experiential marketing' -- marketing that complements the use of traditional media by actively engaging the consumer in the brand experience.

"This is increasingly important for healthcare clients, since a more intimate and meaningful one-to-one dialogue with consumers can significantly influence how a health brand is viewed," Mr. Hopper added.

Matt Giegerich, president of The Quantum Group and The Xchange Group, CommonHealth's direct-to-consumer and relationship-marketing units, respectively, took up the theme of dialogue, observing that "enhancing the patient-physician dialogue is central to what we at CommonHealth do through professional advertising, direct-to-consumer advertising, medical-education and brand-identity programs.

"Now, with the launch of EinsonHealth, our clients will have another avenue to engage the hearts and minds of health-brand consumers. It stands to reason that greater compliance, better outcomes and stronger brands will follow," Mr. Giegerich concluded.

EinsonHealth is the latest in a series of joint ventures between CommonHealth and sister WPP Group companies. In October 1998, CommonHealth joined forces with J. Walter Thompson, Singleton Ogilvy & Mather and Hill and Knowlton to create CommonHealth Australia. This past May, CommonHealth and sister WPP unit Enterprise IG, the well-known brand and identity consultancy, pooled their intellectual capital to create Enterprise IG Health.

Jeffrey McElnea, CEO of Einson Freeman, stressed the depth and breadth of the latest joint-venture partners, CommonHealth and Einson Freeman, noting that "the two companies have between them 115 years of experience in promotion marketing and healthcare communications.

"Combine that with matchless global expertise and the vast resources of WPP and you have an offering that is -- quite literally -- without peer in the promotion-marketing industry," Mr. McElnea said in closing.

Einson Freeman, Inc. (Paramus, New Jersey), a leading brand-promotion agency, ranks in the PROMO Top 10 of all US promotional agencies and is the first to service a client on a global basis (IBM). Einson Freeman's clients include AutoNation, Becton Dickinson, Eli Lilly, Ford, IBM, Motorola, Nestle, Reynolds Metals, Sony and Sunsweet.

CommonHealth comprises EinsonHealth, Adient, CommonHealth Australia, CommonHealth Europe, CommonHealth Kyowa, Enterprise IG Health, Gowers Advertising, Health Learning Systems, the Hill and Knowlton Health and Pharmaceutical Practice, the OZM Group and a partnership in China with the Ogilvy Healthcare Network, ProCom International, The Conectics Group, The Quantum Group, The Xchange Group and Thomas Ferguson Associates.

Med Ad News reported recently that "one [healthcare communications] model has emerged with distinction: CommonHealth's organization," adding that the company offers clients "the most complete and flexible consortium of services."