Agencies

Agencies spend too much time doing manual work. One of the biggest time sucks? Transferring data files between enterprise systems that don’t talk to each other. Max Cheprasov, now an exec at the Dentsu Aegis holding company level, recognized these inefficiencies while working at Dentsu agency iProspect starting in 2011. He set out to document […]

  As the pandemic rages on, media agencies are helping clients navigate the shift to online shopping. Measurement and analytics platform Profitero said on Wednesday that it’s partnering with Dentsu, IPG, MDC Partners and VaynerMedia, as well as the commerce divisions at Horizon Media and Publicis Groupe, to make its ecommerce data and measurement tools […]

COVID-19 has had an outsize negative effect on GroupM than on the rest of parent company WPP’s business as clients paused and cut back on media spend during the crisis. The holding company did not break out GroupM’s Q2 or H1 revenues, but WPP CEO Mark Read told investors on Thursday that the media buying […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Weathering The Storm IBM settled a lawsuit brought last year by the city attorney for Los Angeles accusing The Weather Channel app of tricking users into turning over data without explaining it would be given to third parties for purposes other than weather alerts, […]

Former Xandr exec Kirk McDonald will join GroupM as its CEO for North America, the company said Tuesday. McDonald, who’s been serving as the interim head of AT&T-owned Xandr since CEO Brian Lesser stepped down in March, will report directly to GroupM Global CEO Christian Juhl. McDonald will be replaced by AT&T exec Mike Welch […]

Digital advertising requires a hacker mentality. That’s truer than ever today, as the COVID-19 pandemic changes consumer habits, and marketers prepare for the end of third-party cookies in Chrome and the IDFA on iPhones. “The very substrate of how digital marketing has worked … is radically changing,” said Scott Hagedorn, CEO of Omnicom Media Group […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. State Of The TransUnion Credit bureau and consumer data provider TransUnion acquired cross-channel marketing company Signal on Monday (not to be confused with TruSignal, the predictive analytics and data firm TransUnion acquired in May of last year). TransUnion didn’t share a deal price. The […]

If agencies, media companies and ad tech firms are going to fulfill their renewed promise in recent months to diversify their workforces, they’ve got to reach out to Black students and recent college grads early to explain why a career in advertising is something worth pursuing. With that in mind, Steven Golus, a DoubleClick and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Agency Woes Dentsu is yet another agency group that didn’t have a pretty Q2, as organic revenues declined 17.3% to $166 million. International arm Dentsu Aegis Network dragged down the group as organic revenue declined 20% to $100 million, compared to a 12% drop […]

  Ad tech used to generate most of the hype when it came to high-growth ad industry startups. But as the category matures, services firms that help brands navigate the complex world of digital advertising are growing faster. That’s the story in Inc. Magazine’s 2020 revenue survey charting the fastest-growing private companies in America, released […]

Sometimes, it feels like everyone and their mother claims to either be a customer data platform or have CDP-like capabilities, from indie startups to the major marketing cloud providers. But choosing the right provider is only half the battle. Marketers learned their lesson, often the hard way, back during the DMP days that mar tech […]

You & Mr Jones said Thursday it has acquired influencer marketing agency Collectively in a quest to create one of the top five global, scaled influencer marketing companies. You & Mr Jones snapped up San Francisco-based Collectively for an undisclosed amount. Collectively will be combined with theAmplify, the 25-person, LA-based influencer marketing firm You & […]

This week is earnings week, and there are many, many investor calls on the calendar. Couldn’t listen to them all? In this episode of The Big Story, the AdExchanger team gives you the quick lowdown on how some of the biggest advertisers and agencies did after a full quarter of COVID-19. We start out with […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Nixby Samsung is negotiating a deal with Alphabet that would give Google products more prominence on its smartphones, Bloomberg reports. The Google Android operating system is already the default OS for Samsung Galaxy phones, but this deal would put Google’s digital assistant and the […]

Holding companies are being bludgeoned by the pandemic, and IPG is no exception. Organic revenue decreased 9.9% in the quarter to $1.85 billion as clients cut back spend in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said during its Q2 earnings call Wednesday. IPG suffered declines in every major region, including the United States (-8%), […]

The United States ad market has proven more resilient than anticipated thanks to record political ad spending in the run-up to the 2020 election. Still, US ad spend will decrease 7% this year to $236 billion due to the impacts of COVID-19, according to Zenith’s global ad spend forecast, released on Monday. Without political ad […]

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 […]