Agencies

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 […]

The Association of National Advertisers’ crusade for greater agency transparency entered phase two on Monday, when marketing analytics firm Ebiquity and its subsidiary, FirmDecisions, released an anticipated set of guidelines for advertisers on how to maintain transparent relationships with their agencies. The overarching message: Agencies may have crossed a few lines, but the onus is […]

Advertisers’ concerns around viewability and fraud are slowing down spend on digital advertising, said Daryl Simm, chairman and CEO of Omnicom Media Group during the holding company’s Q2 2016 earnings call on Thursday morning. “While [advertisers] are continuing to grow their digital budgets, there is a tap at the brakes in that space as some […]

“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 Craig Dempster, EVP, Agency Group Leader, Merkle. With the celebrity sightings, gourmet food and entertainment and rosé wine flowing, it’s easy to understand why many see events like Cannes Lions […]

Social listening data is often used only to influence social campaigns. Siloes within agencies can keep it from informing media campaigns in other channels. IPG Mediabrands, for instance, has multiple media buying agencies, including a search and social unit called Reprise Media as well as its trading desk, Cadreon. Reprise and Cadreon made a good […]

For many in the native space, the always-on-the-horizon prospect of the Promised Land has been a hard sell to other digital stakeholders. And though the industry has grown at a rapid clip, there’s still deep confusion over questions as basic and crucial as “What is native?” Native is “a broad term that lacks definition,” said […]

Nancy Hill, who served nine years as president and CEO of the agency trade group the 4A’s, will step down next year, the group said Wednesday. Read the release. The 4A’s board of directors, led by Horizon Media head honcho Bill Koenigsberg, will search for her replacement and “ensure a smooth transition” by June 2017. Hill wrote […]

Another day, another digital media investment. This time, it’s Woven Digital – parent publisher to guy-oriented properties BroBible, Uproxx and HitFix. The company raised $18.5 million from WPP Ventures, money it will use to expand video production and content around verticals like sports, tech and gaming. Woven Digital got its start six years ago as […]

The out-of-home market is turning its real-world infrastructure into a tool for data-driven digital media. An OOH campaign nowadays for a CPG client may look more like a tapestry of strategic relationships. The media provider may allow some mobile tracking (in the US that probably means Outfront or Clear Channel, which together account for a […]

The fallout from the Association of National Advertisers’ report on media agency transparency has taken an unexpected twist. WPP’s media buying unit, GroupM, is suing Ebiquity’s media auditing arm, FirmDecisions, claiming it violated an NDA and misused classified information that GroupM accidentally sent to FirmDecisions. Campaign first reported the story. According to the complaint, GroupM […]

If the UK follows through with its decision to leave the European Union, industry experts say London won’t lose its throne as the epicenter of European advertising. It will, however, have to adjust as the world transacts differently with the British media market. The country is expected to invest twice as much in digital media […]

Hours after the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union, its most prominent ad industry employee is feeling… well, in his own words: “Very disappointed, but the electorate has spoken.” WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell told AdExchanger in a statement that “The resulting uncertainty, which will be considerable, will obviously slow decision-making and […]

Agency creatives can be iffy about applying programmatic concepts, such as targeting, data layering or real-time bidding. Not in all cases, of course – they recognize the moments when programmatic can boost a campaign. But programmatic advocates, they feel, sometimes excessively focus on the technology. They also have a tendency to automate more than what […]

That the media and advertising landscape is in flux isn’t news to any holding company exec. The question is how best to wrangle it – or at least position yourself so you and your clients can take advantage in the future. Dominique Delport, global managing director of French holding company Havas Media Group, has a […]

Are programmatic advertising and creative storytelling finally coming together in a meaningful way? It’s a good question to ask at the Cannes Lions festival, where the whole point is creativity – or it used to be, before the twin powers of data and media started elbowing in on the joint a few years back. But […]

When WPP officially launched Connect in May, it hoped the endeavor would evolve into a core aspect of its media buying umbrella GroupM. “What we’re building centrally will eventually become part of the overall GroupM operation,” said Connect CEO Ruud Wanck. “We’re looking at it as an incubator. But as all media goes programmatic over […]

Overall ad spend will enjoy its strongest growth in six years – 5.4%, reaching $480 billion this year – largely driven by double-digit gains in digital media. The fast-growing sector shows no sign of a slowdown: The interplay of programmatic, online video, social media and mobile will drive digital ad spend growth through 2018, according to […]

Agency buyers believe Snapchat’s partner program, which allows third parties to buy inventory, will help the messaging service migrate from a bespoke buy to a more central part of a media plan. “If you look at the scale and daily time spent, especially among millennials, you have to consider Snapchat a core reach vehicle,” said […]

In its critical agency report, The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) didnt touch on the complexities of the modern media-buying landscape, said Rob Norman, chief digital officer of WPP’s media-buying arm GroupM, in a blog post Tuesday. Norman’s response comes after the ANA mic-dropped its investigative report into agency transparency, criticizing agencies for taking rebates and a […]

Merkle is introducing Publisher Addressable Marketplaces, which matches its advertisers’ CRM data with publishers’ subscriber data in order to target real people through partners like Pandora, Trusted Media Brands, Viant and LiveIntent. Publisher Addressable Marketplaces’ data onboarding and targeting capabilities are similar to Facebook’s hugely successful CRM matching program Custom Audiences, and its introduction comes […]