Agencies

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, […]

Acxiom and Matterkind (née Cadreon) are tightening their partnership with a new addressable media solution for Acxiom clients released Thursday. For the first time, brands will be able to work with Acxiom for addressable media buying through the Addressable Advertising service. The media buys will be powered by Matterkind. More than 2,000 brands already work […]

The departure of long-time television investment executives at two of the world’s largest media agency groups, Omnicom Media Group and GroupM, underscores the changing television marketplace, accelerated by the pandemic. At GroupM, changes to the investment team began in 2016, when longtime chief investment officer Rino Scanzoni left. He was replaced by another investment vet, […]

Kieley Taylor will speak about commerce and video opportunities on Instagram at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO Innovation Labs, taking place virtually May 18-21. Of all the trends accelerating due to COVID-19, the uptick in ecommerce is the one most likely to stick – and Instagram is well suited to benefit, says Kieley Taylor, global VP of social […]

  While advertisers can find bargain-basement pricing for quality reach on social and programmatic display, it’s a different story for premium video formats such as CTV, according to a report aggregating pricing trends across Omnicom Media Group’s client base. The report, published by Mark Oster, director of trading operations at Omnicom Media Group, found that […]

Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. There is a mix shift underway caused by COVID-19 that will affect channels differently, according to Angela Steele, CEO of Carat USA. The best positioned media sellers can provide a clear line of sight into TV and video […]

“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 Bruno Gralpois, co-founder and principal at Agency Mania Solutions. In times of crisis, traditional playbooks go out the window. Under pressure, with mounting concerns and increased tension, the risks of mishandling […]

  The art of the pitch has changed since the pandemic, with employees having to let go of body language, physical cues and handshakes as they reorient around video conferencing. While pitches got delayed thanks to the lockdown, now they’re back in full force. So not much has changed in terms of volume, but meetings […]

Horizon Media said Thursday it has partnered with TransUnion to provide the people-based identity layer for its data platform, Blu. TransUnion’s deterministic identity graph covers all US adult individuals with privacy compliant, PII-based data spanning names, addresses, emails, mobile IDs and home IP addresses. Clients can append first- and third-party data sets to TransUnion’s identity […]

CEO and founder Lara Vandenberg had been planning to launch her new venture, Publicist, in mid-March. Then COVID-19 happened. But the idea behind the startup, an online platform that connects freelance marketing talent with brands and agencies, is doubly relevant in a rocky economic environment. Publicist launched on Tuesday. Vandenberg had been testing the platform […]

IPG CEO Michael Roth believes that post-pandemic, aspects of work-from-home life will definitely stick at agencies, and business travel policies will be dramatically changed. “Working from home has turned out to be fairly attractive,” he said. “It’s amazing how the world and commerce go on.” Overall, the tone from IPG clients is pretty erratic. Travel, […]

Publicis Groupe released an outcomes-based solution on Thursday aimed at midsize companies (MSBs) that provides a money-back guarantee. “If the desired KPI isn’t met, we’ll refund 100% of the client’s entire investment,” said Bryan Kennedy, CEO of Epsilon, which is powering the solution, called The Pact, for its new parent company. There are around 200,000 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Primed For TV  Amazon beefed up its ad-supported OTT ranks with the hire of Maggie Zhang, former EVP of video research and insights at Dentsu Aegis Network. At Amazon, Zhang will develop reach and measurement products for Prime Video advertisers in a role that […]

WPP is slogging along with the rest of the agency market. Q1 like-for-like revenues were down 3.8% to $3.5 billion, the company said Wednesday. In North America, WPP’s largest market, like-for-like revenue was down 1.9% to roughly $1.2 billion. Grey, GroupM and VMLY&R all grew in the region, but revenues began to sag across the […]

Like its competitors, Omnicom expects steep declines in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. “In the preliminary forecasts we looked at, the second quarter was the most traumatic,” said CEO John Wren on the company’s Q1 2020 earnings call Tuesday. Omnicom also declined to give guidance for the rest of the year […]

  Is COVID-19 the beginning of the end for upfronts? Buyers and sellers have long questioned the necessity of flashy presentations, especially as the broadcast TV business declines. Disney chairman Bob Iger recently predicted an end to the antiquated upfront process altogether as a result of the economic crisis. Ad buyers have been pushing to […]

Despite COVID-19, Merkle didn’t think twice about promoting longtime executive Craig Dempster to global CEO last week, sticking to a succession plan two years in the making. “We built a strategy and worked to execute against it,” Dempster said. “We didn’t spend a lot of time debating it.” Dempster, previously president of Merkle in the […]

Mike Law, president of Dentsu Aegis Network’s Amplifi, is thinking hard about what entertainment advertising this year might look like, with production and live events on hold. “You want to have some understanding of what that supply actually is,” he says. “We don’t want to commoditize this to just being about, we’re buying something and […]

Holding companies are being hit hard by the pandemic, and IPG is no exception. The company reported Wednesday that Q1 2020 net organic growth was 0.3% YoY to $1.97 billion, compared to 6.4% growth during the same period a year ago. Revenue was negatively impacted by account losses and the coronavirus pandemic in certain regions, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Third Time’s A Charm Bryan Wiener and Sarah Hofstetter joined the ecommerce software company Profitero as CEO and president, respectively. This is the third business Wiener and Hofstetter have jointly led, following their long tenure at 360i before it was acquired by Dentsu and […]

Work/life balance is a myth, especially in the age of coronavirus. More often than not Amanda Martin, VP of enterprise partnerships at Goodway Group, goes upstairs to grab some laundry … and ends up drifting over to her computer where she immediately gets sucked back into work. “I don’t call it work/life balance, I call […]

This story has been updated to reflect Tuesday’s earnings call.  Publicis Groupe said Monday it will cut the salaries of chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun and executive chairman of the supervisory board Maurice Lévy by 30% in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The company will also reduce compensation by 20% for management board members. For […]