As first tipped by SmartHouse last year Dell and global advertising group WPP have created a new global marketing agency model, combining media and creative services from the WPP roster of agencies.

The Australian arm of the new joint venture is understood to be made up of media services from MediaCom and may include creative staff from WPP creative agencies George Patterson Y&R and The Campaign Palace, with additional new staff recruitment planned to round out the agency offering.

AdNews understands at least 15 people have already been recruited for the Australian start-up.

Dell's plans with WPP come only nine months after it handed the creative business in Australia to Havas Euro RSCG and the media account to MPG, Havas' joint venture with Mitchell Communication Group.

Overseas reports claim Dell has awarded MediaCom the entire global media business.

MediaCom CEO Anne Parsons confirmed MediaCom had been awarded the Dell media business in Australia.

"We take over officially in terms of producing work from May," said Parsons. "We have been working with the client in recent weeks on the transition plan. . . . We are currently planning the team structure and are enthusiastic about being able to work closely with Dell and make our contribution to their on-going success," said Parsons.

Dell announced the deal on its US website in December last year. "Together with the WPP agency, Dell is creating a new marketing model designed to further propel Dell's growth. We've been calling this 'project DaVinci' because we've been looking for the combination of artist and scientist - an agency that has both the creative horsepower and ability to measure the business impact of its work."

The move toward consolidation was put in motion, said the statement, when vice president of global marketing, Casey Jones, joined Dell in early 2007 and discovered the computing giant was working with over 800 agencies worldwide.

A spokesman for Dell Australia said: "We are unable to comment on vendor relationships."