Global CEO Matt Seiler will exit IPG Mediabrands by the end of the year.
During his four years at the helm of the media agency, Seiler led a push to align agency compensation more closely with client outcomes. While his efforts in that area met with limited success, he found more traction with an initiative to automate large chunks of agency workflow.
Seiler will serve as chairman at Mediabrands until the end of this year, overseeing the transition to new CEO Henry Tajer, who was promoted from Global COO.
Seiler is perhaps best known for planting a stake in the ground around process automation. In 2012 he committed to automate 50% of all media buying at Mediabrands within three years. And while he didn’t profess a detailed knowledge of the programmatic space, he was a big booster of it as he railed against the inefficiencies that have long dominated the print and broadcast modes of media buying.
“It drives me crazy that the way media is procured is still the way media is procured,” he said on-stage AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference in 2014. ” “If your objective is to automate 50% of everything, then programmatic is a significant driver of that.”
One year ago, Mediabrands signed on as the charter agency partner for AOL’s ONE platform, and began using that platform to automate data across display, mobile, video and linear TV.
But Mediabrands has suffered some big client losses recently, on Seiler’s watch. The most stinging setback was the loss of Microsoft’s media business last year following an integrated pitch with IPG global network Universal McCann (McCann won the creative business).
Michael Roth, chairman and CEO of Interpublic, said in a statement, “Today’s announcement is part of a long-term game plan and a natural evolution for the management team. It acknowledges Matt and Henry’s contributions to the agency’s achievements and positions them to focus on specific areas in which they can both continue to make key contributions to Mediabrands and IPG going forward.”
