Agencies

Data is everything, creative is dead. Creativity is paramount, data is a distraction. “You hear people say both things, but neither one is true,” said Michael Lebowitz, CEO and founder of Brooklyn-based digital agency Big Spaceship, whose client list is a who’s who of blue chip brands, including Nestlé Purina, Samsung, BMW, YouTube, Absolut Vodka, […]

iProspect is best known for its heritage in search marketing. But the Dentsu Aegis-owned digital performance agency, which first opened its doors in 1996, is changing with the times. Today, content is where it’s at. “There’s a tendency in the industry at the moment to split down two different paths,” said iProspect global President Ben […]

This week at the Cannes Lions festival, Rubicon Project hosted its annual discussion of some of the world’s most powerful digital media buyers. This panel has historically comprised the leaders of the four largest holding company trading desks, but this year was different – with senior buyers from IPG, Publicis, Dentsu and Bank of America. […]

The TV ad makeover is gaining steam, judging by comments on the ground this week in Cannes. Cablevision and NBCUniversal/Comcast are talking up the data granularity and addressability of their millions of set-top boxes, and agency buyers are crowing about results they’re seeing from programmatic TV activities. For example, Modi Media, GroupM’s addressable TV agency, […]

Much has changed for Interpublic Group since 2005, when Michael Roth stepped in to lead the then-troubled holding company. His background, as the CEO of a life insurance company, was unconventional, but it made sense given his role was to push IPG back to financial solvency. “The original profile for this job was financial,” he told […]

A host of content-focused marketing agencies has sprung up inside agencies and media companies in recent years, so why not launch one jointly backed by those entities? That’s the logic behind Truffle Pig, a new agency joint venture from WPP Group, Snapchat and DailyMail. DailyMail and Snapchat media will be the starting points for branded […]

IPG’s MAGNA GLOBAL and Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia released global advertising forecasts Monday, both noting that, in very distinct ways, mobile propels the world’s advertising industry. MAGNA predicted mobile will go from 30% of all digital advertising to 55% by 2019, with a 53% increase this year – crossing the symbolic $50 billion mark. ZenithOptimedia similarly […]

Merkle is bulking up in the talent department. The CRM agency snagged Razorfish COO Michael Komasinski to serve in a similar role within its digital agency services group, along with Gerry Bavaro, outgoing chief strategy officer for Omnicom’s Resolution Media, to serve as SVP of its enterprise solutions group. Merkle’s revenue grew 20% to $382 […]

IPG Mediabrands’ trading desk Cadreon is no longer defined as a trading desk, according to Cadreon’s global president, Arun Kumar. “We see ourselves as an ad tech incubator whose job is to look at how to push this data-driven marketing culture through to the rest of the organization,” he said, fresh off a relocation to […]

In early August, Anthony Rhind, chief digital officer at Dentsu Aegis’ Carat Global, will leave his position and head to ad tech firm Adform as its chief strategy officer. It’s not the most obvious move for Rhind, who has dedicated the past two decades of his career to the agency worlds of Datorama, Havas Digital, […]