Agencies

Amanda Richman, president of activation and investment at Publicis Groupe’s Starcom, used to mostly negotiate rates with TV networks. Today, she helps clients navigate spend on walled gardens, vet ad tech partners and use data to make smarter media buys. “There’s a deep relationship with investment in media inventory and investment from a tech and […]

Both Publicis Groupe’s Zenith and IPG’s Magna attribute growth in online advertising to programmatic targeting and data in their global ad spend forecasts released this week. That momentum will help digital ad spend overtake TV this year for the first time. Magna pegged overall ad spend at $187 billion this year, a 3.7% increase over […]

Media agency employees sitting for Facebook’s Blueprint certification exam may have flashbacks of their experiences taking the SATs. The exam, which certifies agency employees on every Facebook native ad product within its Ads Manager, Business Manager and Power Editor tools, is a multiple-hour affair that requires weeks of prep. Test-takers must roll up their sleeves […]

Targeting a running watch to a broad group like “runners” on Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore. Bold Worldwide, a social media agency with a roster of sports-focused clients, advocates that its brands – including running and cycling watch Polar – massively increase the amount of content they create. With more versions of ads, they can […]

“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, chief operating officer at Goodway Group. One thing the human brain is conditioned to do is take shortcuts in making assessments and decisions. Without this, we’d be stuck in […]

Cadreon’s global president Arun Kumar has become IPG Mediabrands’ first-ever chief data and marketing technology officer. In addition to overseeing all data, technology and analytics assets within Mediabrands, he will still head up Cadreon. Among Kumar’s top priorities is scaling IPG Mediabrands’ data stack across the unit and IPG at large. “We’ve gotten pretty good […]

Indie programmatic agency Anagram is indie no more. On Thursday, programmatic ad firm Digilant acqui-hired the five-person team behind Anagram in a bid to beef up its custom programmatic ad solutions. “Providing custom solutions is not just about technology,” said Digilant global CEO Alan Osetek. “Technology is only as good as the people who use […]

While major change-management consultancies like Deloitte, Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have acquired creative and digital design agencies to get closer to the CMO, they’ve haven’t purchased any media-buying agencies. But as these consulting firms move deeper into the digital marketing arena, they’re building media-buying services as well. Here’s how Deloitte, Accenture and PwC are stirring […]

As EVP of performance marketing for Interpublic Group’s MRM//McCann, it’s in Subu Desaraju’s purview to crack marketing cloud complexities in client deployments. Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM and Nielsen all built marketing clouds via acquisition, but with these ongoing investments come challenges around data interoperability and overall efficiency across their stacks. Although a number of platforms […]

Dentsu Aegis Network’s Isobar sits on the blurring continuum between agency and consultancy. Launched in 2000 under the name Roundarch as a joint venture between WPP, Deloitte and BroadVision, Isobar used to compete with the “who’s who list of digital agencies,” said co-CEO Jeff Maling. But when WPP and Deloitte exited the investment and Aegis […]

Google updated its brand safety controls on Tuesday after a slew of companies pulled advertising spend from YouTube and Google Ad Exchange. In response to the withdrawals, Google promised to develop tools to better police and remove ads from content that attacks people based on their race, gender, religion or “similar categories.” To do so, […]

When Merkle launched as a CRM and performance media agency in 1988, its strong data repository and direct-response focus set it apart from other media agencies. As marketing went increasingly digital, Merkle’s strong data foundation laid the groundwork for a natural evolution into programmatic buying, turning it into a competitor for digital and media agencies. […]

XAd only wants advertisers to get paid if someone actually walks in the door. On Thursday, the location-based mobile ad network said it would allow brands to transact on a cost-per-visit (CPV) basis. Advertisers will be able to make media buys based on foot traffic-related KPIs and only pay for performance. It’s an appealing proposition […]

Brian Lesser, CEO of GroupM North America, will speak at Programmatic IO on April 5 in San Francisco. Marketers are under pressure to transform their businesses around digital while keeping costs low, so agencies have to evolve their business models to meet these demands. At GroupM, that evolution has played out with the launch of mPlatform, which […]

Havas Media is going through a brain change thanks to IBM and Watson developer Equals 3. While Havas’s relationship with IBM goes back for decades, it was mostly on the creative side. But Havas Media has over the past year been installing and training a Watson-powered artificial intelligence (AI) solution – in the form of […]

This is the third of three stories in a mini-series on how artificial intelligence is affecting the work that agencies do. Read the previous stories about Xaxis and Publicis.Sapient.  After years of double-digit growth, global lingerie brand Cosabella suddenly lost momentum in 2016. “We decided we needed to cut ties [with our agency] and change something […]

This is the second of three stories in a mini-series on how artificial intelligence is affecting the work that agencies do. The next installment will publish on Friday. Read the first story about Xaxis.  As marketer interest in artificial Intelligence (AI) grows, Publicis.Sapient sees opportunity to provide guidance. It has a dedicated unit that provides AI-related advice […]

As consumer attention continues to fragment, creative agencies are relying more on real-time insights to craft personalized messages and optimize them on the fly. That requires bringing media and creative services closer together. While smaller indie shops are bringing media execution in-house to make messaging more relevant, holding companies experiment with cross-discipline and cross-agency teams. […]

This is the first story in a trilogy on how artificial intelligence is affecting the work agencies do. The next installments will publish on Wednesday and Friday. Xaxis, a partner of dynamic creative platform Jivox, is leveraging the latter company’s newest product, released on Monday: an AI-based dynamic creative content recommendation engine. Xaxis will layer […]

The relationship between Lenovo and its agency partners is not what it used to be – in a good way. “That’s not to say that there isn’t a role for the traditional agency, like we have with our creative agency, Ogilvy, to drive the brand framework – we need that,” Lenovo SVP and CMO David Roman told […]

GroupM digital agency Essence on Thursday launched a data strategy unit, its latest shift in an ongoing reorg around audience-based planning and buying. To lead the new unit, Essence has tapped Jon Taylor, previously VP of operations and audience insights at Dun & Bradstreet. The data strategy team will guide clients through platform selection 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, chief operating officer at Goodway Group. If you’ve been through an IPO before, you know how delicate the initial pricing is. If it’s too high, the stock doesn’t get […]

The Dentsu Aegis Network is testing a cross-screen measurement system developed by video platform YuMe, released Wednesday, which maps connected TV (CTV) IDs to Nielsen panels. The system gives TV planners access to audience measurement based on demographic breakouts across multiple app publishers through a partnership with Nielsen. Dentsu’s digital video investment team wants a […]

Welcome to episode No. 15 of AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. When a large amount of marketer business migrated between agencies in 2015 and 2016, Omnicom Group was the prime beneficiary. The holding company led all of its peers in the total value of its creative and media business wins in 2016, […]

Erica Schmidt, managing director of North America for Cadreon, will speak about the state of programmatic and advanced TV at Programmatic IO on April 5 in San Francisco. The times, they are a-changing for traditional TV planners. Advertisers and agencies increasingly expect to buy TV, over-the-top (OTT) and mobile on a converged basis. And many want to […]

TV viewership is fragmenting faster than the advertising industry’s ability to adapt to it all. And advertisers bracing for the 2017 upfront season aren’t entirely satisfied with the big measurement companies. Consider Nielsen’s delayed Total Content Ratings product and comScore’s accounting snafu and anticipated delisting. “People are in dispute about what the measurement process should be,” […]

DigitasLBi had started to grow beyond its core purpose: to be the data and insights shop within the Publicis.Sapient family. When global CEO Luke Taylor stepped down two weeks ago, Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis.Sapient in AMEA and APAC, also became global President of DigitasLBi. As president, Vaz will have oversight of DigitasLBi’s brand strategy and positioning, […]

“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, chief operating officer at Goodway Group. One thing consistently mentioned at conferences by marketers and agencies is the need for simplicity and standardization – “Just tell us what to […]

On its Q4 and full-year 2016 earnings call on Friday, IPG said it will invest in data and analytics for its global media management unit, Mediabrands, rather than bolting on an acquired solution. “We believe [Mediabrands] will become the data stack and platform that will service all of our clients,” said CEO Michael Roth. Roth […]

Since iCrossing entered the market as a search agency in 1998, digital spend has expanded to social, display and mobile, all of which are table stakes. As a result, iCrossing expanded into a full-service agency, eventually getting acquired by Hearst in 2010. Since then, it’s snagged AOR accounts for clients like Bayer, Church and Dwight and […]