Agencies

Omnicom mitigated the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business in part by cutting 6,100 jobs across its network in the second quarter, the company said Tuesday during its earnings call. Omnicom also froze hiring, eliminated salary increases, implemented voluntary pay cuts across its agencies and participated in government subsidy programs in 35 markets. […]

Publicis Groupe, after years of struggling in North America, was on its way back to positive performance at the beginning of Q2. Then COVID-19 hit, and organic growth declined 6.8% for the quarter and 3.3% for the first half of the year. “We were really off to a good 2020,” CEO Arthur Sadoun said on […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Ben Antier, co-founder and chief product officer at Publica. 2020 is shaking our society to its core. While health and social justice remain priorities for all of us, we are also facing significant challenges […]

After acquiring 10 agencies in the last four years (and seven in the last two), marketing services firm LRW Group is rebranding to Material. Material’s acquisition spree began in 2015, with funding from private equity firm Tailwind Capital. Its purchases include full-service agency T3, customer service agency Strativity and market research firm Kelton. CEO Dave […]

Media agencies are the No. 1 partner that brands are reviewing as COVID-19 rocks their marketing plans. Sixty-three percent of brands are reevaluating their media agencies, according to AdExchanger’s 2020 industry outlook report. That’s compared to 56% of respondents reassessing their data partners, 44% looking at new measurement partners and just 19% reexamining their relationships […]

Marketers have historically siloed their known customers from their digital audiences, but that separation prevents brands from reaching consumers throughout their journey. To bridge that gap, IPG-owned Acxiom on Wednesday launched ConneCXions, a suite of solutions and software applications that helps marketers deploy consistent audience definitions, based on Acxiom’s first-party ID graph, across direct and […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Jay Friedman, president and partner at Goodway Group. As an industry, we’ve spent the last several years talking about the duopoly, specifically how Google and Facebook receive and control around 60% of […]

It never ends. COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns of varying degrees in states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona and California mean advertisers must once again adapt their strategies. After pausing media spend in March and April, advertisers tentatively returned in late May. But the rise of coronavirus cases in more than 30 states means they’re accelerating […]

Consolidation has opened up better measurement solutions in podcasting – and big brands are jumping in. On Wednesday, Omnicom said it will invest $20 million upfront into podcasts on Spotify in the second half of 2020, The Wall Street Journal first reported. The deal also gives Omnicom access to exclusive and original content globally and […]

Havas Media and GroupM each launched curated media marketplaces representing black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and other minority-owned publishers, as well as publishers that create content specifically for underrepresented communities. Havas Media’s social equity private marketplace, which went live last Friday, represents roughly 250 publishers with minority and LGBTQ+ owners, including Blavity, MadameNoire and Black Enterprise. Moen […]

Supply-path optimization (SPO) has become a selling point for agencies looking to bring value and savings to clients in programmatic. An SPO strategy allows buyers to cut out players in the programmatic supply chain that don’t add value, such as resellers or exchanges that sell only duplicative inventory, while simultaneously funneling more spend toward exchanges […]

The past week has seen a reckoning begin over the content policies – or lack thereof – governing the big media platforms. Major marketers, including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Diageo, are halting spend on social media at least through July. But there’s always the danger than these efforts end up being an exercise in virtue signaling once they’re […]

  The holding company MDC Partners was already struggling before COVID-19 decimated the US economy. But a proposed merger by Stagwell Group, first reported by AdAge late Thursday, demonstrates how the pandemic likely accelerated the end of MDC’s run as an independent public company. MDC Partners and Stagwell Group did not respond to requests for […]

  The ad market will pay for the United States government’s late lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to GroupM’s midyear global ad spend forecast. The US advertising market will shrink 9.9% this year to $207.3 billion, excluding political ad spend, which will buoy the market by $15 billion in 2020, according to […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Searching For Something? Breaking into the search engine category is hard, borderline impossible. But one familiar name is taking a new approach. Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s former SVP of ads and commerce, co-founded a search engine called Neeva that doesn’t collect user data or sell […]

At long last, Google released its sellers.json file. And the world was 5% grateful, in line with the level of completeness of Google’s file. This week on The Big Story, the AdExchanger team welcomes Jounce Media founder Chris Kane to talk about what’s missing in Google’s seller.json file. And senior editor Sarah Sluis, who spoke […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Rémi Lemonnier, co-founder at Scibids. Intelligence, success and even survival are often determined by one’s ability to adapt to change. The current crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and protests […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written about the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Amanda Martin, vice president of enterprise partnerships at Goodway Group. In the media, where there are eyeballs – time spent – there are dollar signs, and where there are dollars, there is fraud. A […]

Unlike the 2008-2009 recession which had a similar impact across all businesses, the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been more hit-or-miss – and it has mostly missed digital advertising. While some businesses like brick-and-mortar retail dwindled, others adapted and grew as ecommerce surged. In media, sheltering-in-place created skyrocketing consumption on digital video and […]

  Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts.  When Merkle launched as a direct and database marketing agency 30 years ago, it had no idea how relevant these skill sets would be to digital marketing in the future. Fast-forward to today, and Merkle’s expertise handling first-party data, building CRM databases and […]

Brand safety is not a static concept. COVID-19 has surfaced how using brand safety as a blunt instrument can de-monetize news publishers during times when information is needed most. And as the pandemic accelerates the adoption of connected TV, digital out of home (DOOH), digital audio and gaming, brands must have a nuanced approach to […]

Ninety-five percent of marketers have changed their 2020 marketing plans since March, according to a Dentsu Aegis Network survey, reflecting just how acutely the pandemic has heightened the need for flexibility. “It’s either been an optimization, a budget cut, a budget increase or shifting money throughout the year to better match new consumer behaviors,” said […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Social Media Vs. Trump Snapchat is the latest social media network to enforce policies that restrain President Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric. The company said it will no longer promote Trump’s account on the Snapchat Discover feed due to comments he made that could incite violence […]

  The US agency sector will lay off about 52,000 jobs over the next two years as media spend declines 23%, Forrester predicts. Agencies are projected to cut 35,167 jobs in 2020 and 16,578 in 2021. The global picture is even starker, with the big six agency holding companies poised to eliminate an additional 49,695 […]

TripleLift is trying to encourage brands to buy ads next to news content, and has curated a group of 1,600 news publishers into a private marketplace. Those buying within the Help Journalism PMP also won’t have to pay TripleLift’s ad tech fee for the rest of Q2. GroupM has signed more than a dozen of its […]

For better or for worse, the country is starting to reopen. But that doesn’t mean advertisers are simply flipping their media plans back on. As advertisers return to the market, they’re thinking critically about how consumer media and shopping habits have changed, and how strategies that worked in the past won’t necessarily work in the […]

Forrester’s Media Agency Wave, released Tuesday, gave the highest ratings to the agencies that used data platforms to improve both media execution and ad creatives and created a more centralized, integrated experience for their clients. IPG media agency UM led the 10 media agencies evaluated for the report. To qualify, each agency needed $10 billion […]

MightyHive, the programmatic and data arm under S4 Capital, said Tuesday it has merged with data and analytics firm Digodat in Latin America. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Digodat has more than 40 employees and offices in Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia. The firm expands MightyHive’s Latin American presence beyond Brazil, where it […]

The remote work experiment caused by COVID-19 will transform agencies. Automation will become even more integral to agency workflows as consumer media habits shift, changing the nature of talent and services. Highly office-driven cultures will shift to a more remote, distributed workforce, as companies reduce their real estate holdings to drive efficiencies during the economic […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. On Again, Office Again Agencies are starting to plan for office returns. Omnicom is developing a three-phase return strategy based on local government guidelines, Campaign reports. Phase one involves returning offices to 25% occupancy with social distancing rules in place, such as wearing masks, […]