Agencies

Ari Bluman, a highly-regarded digital media exec whose passion was only rivaled by his bluntness, has passed away after a long fight with cancer. He was 44. To those who knew him, Bluman was a “man of conviction” who “lived his beliefs” and practiced “radical candor” in order to “improve the industry he loved and […]

Instagram announced Tuesday that it’s opening up its advertising Partner Program to a new category of member: media buyers. The program today is comprised of a set of about 50 vendors certified for Instagram’s ad tech, content marketing and community management services. Bringing media buying services into the fold is the natural next move for Instagram […]

After decades of specializing in hardware and on-premise servers, IBM is emphasizing its new-wave agency IBM Interactive Experience (IBM iX), a mashup of design, systems integration, analytics and the Internet of Things, with billings in the billions. IBM iX made three digital, design and brand agency acquisitions in a single week this winter when it snapped […]

Many agree there’s a great need for holding companies to integrate their media buying structure “horizontally”: to collaborate rather than compete across groups. Is it possible the obstacle lies not with the agency, but with the client? Executives from Dentsu Aegis, IPG, Havas, Omnicom and WPP took up the question at the Modern Marketing Summit […]

“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’re addicted to what’s new and shiny. A breaking news alert may flash across the screen and, despite knowing the alert is likely […]

Clients want their agencies to operate in fluid, multidisciplinary teams. That’s hard to achieve for larger holding companies traditionally siloed into distinct arms. Disparate units working toward internal goals often find themselves competing instead of collaborating to meet client KPIs. Hearst-owned marketing agency iCrossing is challenging this model with a new structure that promotes omnichannel […]

Keith Pieper, VP of technology at IMM, will be on hand to discuss approaches to viewability testing at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. One hundred percent sounds like the best there is – but that’s not 100% true when it comes to viewability. According to separate pieces of research conducted […]

The ailing agency-client relationship is so bad that it resembles a married couple who “hasn’t had sex since 1972.” That’s the grim assessment of Debra Giampoli, director of global strategic agency relations at Mondelez. She speaks from experience: Mondelez has sometimes seen its smaller brands neglected by larger agencies that didn’t understand their business needs. […]

Essence co-founder and chief product officer Andrew Shebbeare will discuss fraud, lack of transparency and misaligned incentives in the ad ecosystem at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. Andrew Shebbeare says the ad industry is at a tipping point. The acceleration of consumer ad blocking and uncertainty around viewability and fraud […]

MAGNA Global, the strategic investment arm of Interpublic Group, revealed Wednesday it would shift $250 million from its TV budget into Google Preferred over a three-year period, making it the latest agency to commit big upfront dollars to YouTube. Other agencies, such as WPP, Publicis and Omnicom, have collectively committed “billions” through the Preferred program to […]

Marketers and CFOs are struggling to speak each other’s languages, and agencies are getting drowned out amidst the noise. When a brand’s marketing and finance teams can’t align on a goal, the agency fails to meet client KPIs. Agency responsibilities are either passed off to new players in the space, like tech firms and management […]

Xaxis is getting its ad tech house in order with the creation of a new role: chief technology officer. Filling those shoes at the WPP programmatic trading desk is Bob Hammond, whose career spans some of the most recent greatest hits in ad tech M&A. Hammond, whose appointment was announced on Tuesday, served as CTO […]

Digital holds a 29.3% share of all media investment in the United States, up from 28% last quarter, according to GroupM’s annual Interaction 2016 report, which aggregates insights from the agency’s digital advertising activities and was released on Monday. GroupM focused its findings around four core issues related to the growth of mobile: the difficulty […]

About one year ago, GroupM quietly introduced a new structure designed to consolidate its real-time ad buying capabilities across programmatic, social, search and mobile. Called Connect, the new group appeared to be the WPP-owned media agency network’s answer to the growing need for programmatic decentralization of programmatic buying. We have seen that decentralization play out across […]

In an unusual partnership between agency and onboarder, DigitasLBi has teamed up with LiveRamp to sharpen and speed up the segmentation capabilities of its advanced analytics platform to drive more targeted campaigns. DigitasLBi said Thursday that it will leverage LiveRamp’s data connectivity services on IDIOM, its advanced analytics platform – still in the process of […]

Programmatic revenues from Omnicom’s trading desk, Accuen, grew $25 million YoY, the holding company noted Tuesday during its Q1 2016 earnings call. Notably, Accuen’s performance since 2014 has reliably shown YoY revenue growth of between $20 million and $40 million. Q1 2016 – $25M Q4 2015 – $45M Q3 2015 – $25M Q2 2015 – […]

More than a quarter of programmatic decisions are made by agencies for their advertisers – up from 20% since September. The revelation was presented by Mark Mahaney, managing director at RBC Capital Markets, at AdExchanger’s PROGRAMMATIC I.O conference in San Francisco on Thursday. The figures, which surprised Mahaney, show agencies make 27% of those decisions […]

Agency holding group Interpublic Group is recruiting for at least five new Advanced TV positions for its trading desk and tech unit Cadreon. Cadreon, which employs about 500 globally and 300 in the US, attributes the hiring moves to recent advances by networks like NBCUniversal and Fox to automate digital video, display and now linear TV […]

“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 Leah van Zelm, vice president at Merkle. Those in the people-based marketing business know that customer journey mapping “quick guides” abound. But beware: Their overly simplistic nature can lead marketers […]

When Omnicom Media Group on Friday launched Hearts & Science, its third agency network alongside OMD and PHD, it chose Annalect founder and CEO Scott Hagedorn to lead the effort. The development comes four months after Omnicom grabbed the majority of Procter & Gamble’s $2 billion media account from Publicis Groupe’s Starcom Mediavest. Part of P&G’s […]

“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. When someone says Hershey, you probably think of chocolate. Or when you hear Louis Vuitton, you may envision brown-and-gold monogrammed handbags. But when […]

A little less than a year ago, Snapchat was still at the beginning stages of working out its advertising strategy. Its ad sales team felt small, at least from the perspective of some agency execs, and unable to keep up with agency and advertiser demand. But in recent months, Snapchat seems to be taking itself […]

Publicis Groupe’s Publicis.Sapient platform was a big winner in Gartner Research’s ranking of digital agencies, released Friday. Publicis.Spaients’s three digital agency brands, Razorfish, SapientNitro and Digitas LBI were recognized as “Leaders” in the research firm’s Magic Quadrant for global digital marketing agencies. Gartner reserves the Leader designation for companies that exhibit both completeness of vision […]

AOL rolled out a programmatic self-serve platform for TV buyers on Monday, and Omnicom Group is the first agency partner to test-drive it. While some competing solutions only enable planning, AOL said its platform also handles execution and reporting. AOL thinks its developing device graph under Verizon gives it a competitive advantage in omnichannel media […]

Jonathan Hsia will discuss advertiser perceptions of ad tech on April 13 at PROGRAMMATIC.IO in San Francisco. While ad tech capabilities have matured, marketers still need to catch up, said Jonathan Hsia, Mindshare North America’s head of digital investment. “It really is more a question of: What do marketers need to do to leverage ad tech in a […]

Deloitte Digital, which describes itself as a “digital creative consultancy,” has been hiring to offer better services around streaming media/entertainment businesses. Part of its growth over the last three years, from 1,000 people to about 7,000 today, was to staff up to accommodate new business opportunities like TV everywhere services as more TV companies go […]

Shaina Boone will discuss viewability, fraud and supply chain issues on April 14 at PROGRAMMATIC.IO in San Francisco. Talking about fraud and viewability is one thing – but “actually managing it is an entire program,” said Shaina Boone, managing director of marketing sciences at OMD USA, where she helms the analytics practice. Managing advertiser expectations is […]

Accenture Interactive, the $2.9 billion digital and marketing services arm within the massive management consultancy, sees itself as a new breed of agency. Instead of taking a campaign-based approach, Accenture Interactive instead blends commerce, design and analytics to make marketing more experiential. “If you looked at the old KPIs for grocery and retail, they wanted […]

A handful of ad tech employees who started out at agencies are now returning to senior-level agency roles. And they’re bringing a particularly valuable blend of skills with them. According to Accuen CEO Megan Pagliuca, that initial agency experience is key. “There’s a big con of hiring people from ad tech [without an agency background] […]

Almighty, an independent digital agency in Boston, revealed on Wednesday the launch of a division called Almighty(X), designed to help clients evaluate their technology stacks from budget and optimization standpoints. The goal is to provide more transparency in the agency-client relationship. Almighty(X) will be headed up by Rob Griffin, a former senior executive at French media giant […]