Agencies

As the ad industry races to embrace mobile, social, data targeting and ad tech, Young & Rubicam (Y&R) CEO David Sable says it’s forgetting about the consumer. Audience targeting? Misses out on potential customers. Ad blocking? A reflection of the unchecked proliferation of ads. Sponsored content? It’s been around forever. But he also realizes ads […]

When Vice needed to diversify its distribution beyond Facebook and YouTube, it didn’t look to other digital platforms. Instead, said CEO Shane Smith, Vice partnered with HBO and hatched plans for a TV network. “We realized we couldn’t be hostage to Facebook and YouTube. We had to go off-platform,” he told WPP head Martin Sorrell […]

Mobile has been reshaping the way advertisers spend on digital, but the pace is picking up significantly, setting the stage for desktop ad spend to contract even faster than legacy channels. As advertisers shift spend to mobile, desktop advertising will shrink faster than newspapers and magazines, according to Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecast, released on Monday. […]

This is the third installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with Nazanin Jazayeri and Andrew Klein. Data is a vehicle for great storytelling, according to Ella Chinitz, group vice president of data science at Razorfish. “[It’s about] deriving insights out of […]

The digital takeover of global ad spend ain’t here yet, according to Carat’s global ad forecast. “Not to discount digital by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve seen somewhat of a resurgence of what’s going on with linear TV,” said Andy Donchin, chief investment officer at Dentsu Aegis Network, which owns Carat. Some advertisers […]

When Dentsu Aegis Network bought programmatic shop Accordant Media on Thursday, it was the Japanese holding company’s second major tech acquisition in less than a month, following the majority stake Dentsu took in CRM agency Merkle. “Programmatic is the way of working in the future and we’ll continue to invest in people who have the […]

This is the second installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read the first PII interview with Nazanin Jazayeri. As associate director of social experience and custom product at Publicis’ Mediavest | Spark, Andrew Klein loves discovering new technologies and platforms. That wasn’t how […]

Dentsu has snapped up Accordant, a well-regarded independent programmatic technology and services firm. The acquisition comes on the heels of Dentsu’s roughly $1.5 billion deal to acquire database marketer Merkle. Accordant is among the most recognized independent programmatic services providers in the United States – a group that also includes the Goodway Group and Kepler Group. […]

Agencies are straining to recruit and retain data-driven talent. Prospects with a strong background in statistical analysis and data mining – the second most popular skill on LinkedIn as of January – aren’t necessarily looking to work at a media agency. And it’s hard for agencies to retain employees due to a business culture that […]

This is the first installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Nazanin Jazayeri is a translator. As director of advanced analytics at Mindshare, she’s part of a team that bridges product developers, media planners and buyers by interpreting the massive streams of data that […]

Xaxis, despite scrutiny of its principal-based buying methods in the ANA’s June report, will grow at a forecasted rate of 25% year over year, WPP said on an investor call Wednesday. Based on the holding company’s H1 earnings report, neither WPP nor Xaxis have yet taken a major hit from the ANA’s findings. Advertising and […]

When DigitasLBi appointed Emily Macdonald as its first head of programmatic on Thursday, it wanted to ensure all employees across planning, buying, data and analytics teams are trained on programmatic buying. The newly created international role comes from Publicis Groupe’s recent reshuffle to integrate programmatic as a service across all of its agencies, beginning last year […]

“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. We’ve seen clearing prices for display inventory rise more than 100% in the last two years, and video inventory grow more than 50%. […]

As publishers embraced header bidding, many programmatic buyers observed the trend from the sidelines. Since header bidding boosts yield for publishers by increasing competition, it follows that buyers may be paying more. But buyers wouldn’t necessarily know if that’s the case, since SSPs don’t note whether the impression comes through a header or not. If […]

Dentsu Aegis’ Isobar will launch a new unit by merging its consulting capabilities with those of two corporate siblings at Dentsu, the agency announced on Thursday. Copernicus Marketing and Forbes Consulting, both subsidiaries of Dentsu, will be merged as an integrated division under the Isobar agency network. David Forbes, founder of Forbes Consulting, and Peter […]

While media bartering isn’t commonly discussed, the ANA’s two reports on agency transparency referenced the practice 49 times. Here’s how it works: A barter agency might agree to buy an advertiser’s surplus product, such as an airline’s unsold flight tickets at full price, which it would give to employees for business travel. In return, the […]

Facebook introduced a page-loading protocol on Tuesday that makes its ads almost indistinguishable from Facebook content, and thus prevents ad blockers from working on its site. Andrew Bosworth, the social media company’s VP of ads and business platform, said the change forces ad blockers to choose between not blocking ads or severely undermining the user […]

If Dentsu Aegis Network’s majority investment in Merkle goes through, the CRM and performance marketing agency will support Dentsu’s media-buying agencies. Those media agencies will gain access to Merkle’s proprietary tools, including a cross-device identity management system, a CRM-matching database for publishers and, most notably, the M1 audience platform. “The intent is that every agency […]

When Mark Read became Wunderman’s global CEO in January 2015, he brought with him a great deal of digital know-how gleaned from his time leading WPP Digital. Wunderman had been in a state of continuous transformation, changing from a direct marketing agency to a digital one. Over the past 10 years, it has tripled in […]

Japanese holding company Dentsu Aegis Network will acquire a majority stake in Maryland-based Merkle – a CRM and performance marketing specialist – and one of the largest independent digital agencies. It did $436 million in revenue in 2015, a 14% increase over the year prior. While terms were not disclosed, the deal values Merkle at […]

Studio71, a multichannel video network (MCN) owned by German broadcast, radio and print media giant ProSieben, aims to be a media company for the social media creator. To ensure content makers and brands work together effectively, Studio71 snagged agency vet Matt Seiler as president of marketing solutions last month. The former chairman of IPG Mediabrands […]

K2 Intelligence spent eight months investigating questionable agency business practices for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), culminating in a critical, groundbreaking report. Now the firm will help advertisers enforce and monitor transparency with their media-buying agencies through a new business unit. The practice, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, will use […]

WPP-owned ad network-slash-tech shop Xaxis has its first-ever Latin America CEO. Lucas Mentasti was promoted from the unit’s Latin America managing director to its chief. It’s a big step up from where he started in 2013, moving from Publicis-owned Starcom to head up Xaxis’ Latin America business. At that time, “head up” meant doing everything, […]

“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 John Lee, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Merkle. The rise of programmatic over the past five years has moved the media industry forward in a big way. […]

WPP’s GroupM upended the industry’s mutual viewability standard back in 2014, when it promised to buy only 100% in-view ads for clients. Now it’s created an executive position to enforce that standard in all of its markets as well as to shield clients from a slew of other brand safety issues presented by digital advertising. […]

“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. Fraud costs marketers $7.2 billion annually, according to the ANA. Ask buyers who’s at fault and they’ll say they’re not sure, but they […]

If a brand is able to handle its own growth hacking, user acquisition, audience creation, tracking, measurement and testing, then fair enough – there’s no real reason to work with a digital agency. “But if you’re not Machine Zone or Supercell with a 50-person team that’s really good at that, then you do need us,” […]

To maintain transparent relationships with their agencies, brands must consider significantly investing in things like staffing, continuing media education and legal counsel, according to ANA and Ebiquity. In their most recent report, ANA and Ebiquity issued a long list of recommendations that also included hiring a “chief media officer” to manage agency relationships. It’s a […]

Accenture’s digital services group Accenture Interactive “never set out to disrupt the agency relationship,” said Bob Barr, its managing director and global B2B commerce lead, but that’s pretty much what’s happening. “Just from a digital perspective, we’re a [roughly $7] billion agency,” Barr said. “When I tell that to people, they just stop and go, ‘Huh. […]

Retargeting can be more complicated for auto advertisers than for their counterparts in consumer packaged goods or retail. “In the old days, retargeting campaigns gave us a giant boost to our [digital] KPIs,” said Tom Maxmølris, marketing operations manager for Ford Denmark. But that was because Ford Denmark focused on “click to act” campaigns, which strengthened […]