Agencies

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 […]

“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, COO at Goodway Group. The ability to attribute offline sales to digital media is within reach. While every sale is not yet attributable, the results generated by measuring the […]

Automated guaranteed has been the slowest part of programmatic to get off the ground. But one of its biggest proponents is the Dentsu Aegis-owned trading desk Amnet, which sees the technology as key to making programmatic a central part of everything an agency does. From January to December last year, budgets going to automated guaranteed […]

It’s been a year since Publicis Groupe forced a big transition of its programmatic operation that many saw as the future of data-driven agency services: It decentralized its seven-year-old trading desk, VivaKi AOD, and reassigned its employees to new jobs within the holding company’s media agencies. Today, its grand experiment is seriously strained by a […]

Xaxis, WPP’s programmatic media company, is a bit of lightning rod in the advertising industry for a few well-documented reasons. However, it’s undeniable that the ad net/trading desk/tech shop combo invests a lot into its own data, partnerships and technologies. Consider, for instance, the $25 million it put into its proprietary data management platform Turbine […]

Merkle on Wednesday revealed its purchase of UK-based Comet Global Consulting, a provider of CRM and marketing solutions. It did not disclose terms. This acquisition marks the third and largest for Merkle within nine months, growing its European employee base to more than 500. The deal comes at the end of Merkle’s five-year global growth […]

The Association of National Advertisers and the 4As might be mending fences, but transparency – or the lack thereof – is still an issue. It’s why programmatic agency Anagram decided to start setting its clients up with their own direct platform contracts, rather than stepping in as the middleman. Anagram founder Adam Cahill calls it “radical […]

“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 Nick Illobre, director of enterprise media solutions at Merkle. As we think about the evolution of programmatic media buying, we can all reminisce about having to explain what “programmatic” was […]

Devices and hardware will come and go. “Which is why the future is absolutely about mobility,” said Lisa Donohue, CEO of Publicis Groupe’s Starcom. “Mobility and understanding a consumer’s movements, the decisions they make and why they make them.” It’s a philosophy Starcom applies to “new establishment” clients like Airbnb and to more “classic” brands […]

The Trade Desk has grown faster than probably any other DSP in recent years, as founder and CEO Jeff Green sought to capitalize on what he saw as strategic errors by rivals. “We saw that most of the DSPs had created channel conflicts for themselves,” said Green, a reference to some other DSPs’ media company […]

ComScore has struck a measurement deal with Twitter to enable a tagless integration to its digital audience delivery and analytics system, validated Campaign Essentials (vCE). The integration will take effect in Q2 and will give advertisers access to digital GRPs and reach and frequency metrics. These new reporting features will be available directly within Twitter’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, COO at Goodway Group. After the Super Bowl, my family had this conversation: Wife to son: Did you watch the ads? Son: No. Wife: That’s half the fun. Son: […]

There’s an old ad industry saw that goes, “a little Procter & Gamble budget in everyone’s paycheck.” Well, now there’s a half billion less. The CPG giant told investors on the company’s earnings call in January that the company had succeeded in cutting $370 million in marketing costs in 2015, and that it expected to […]

Performance marketing agency Merkle’s acquisition Tuesday of London-based data marketing agency DBG for undisclosed terms marks another step toward international growth, specifically in the UK. While DBG offers similar capabilities as Merkle around marketing databases, campaign management, data platforms and CDI, it gives Merkle key insight into UK data knowledge, platforms and technology. “A big […]

Location analytics company Placed announced Wednesday its attribution service would connect billboards to in-store traffic. It will do this via a mix of partnerships with holding company agencies and out-of-home (OOH) inventory suppliers like Clear Channel Media and cinema ad network NCM. “OOH is shifting,” said Michael Lieberman, COO of tenthavenue, an OOH agency within […]

IBM’s purchase of three agencies in six days on behalf of its in-house agency Interactive Experience (iX) is uncharacteristic since iX hasn’t been acquisitive in its almost two-decade history. The first purchase, last Thursday, was Resource/Ammirati, known for brand building. IBM then acquired digital agency Aperto on Tuesday and design agency Ecx.io on Wednesday; both […]

“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 Karima Zmerli, VP of digital audience management and data management platform (DMP) solution lead at Merkle. With the evolution of digital targeting comes the rise of addressable targeting platforms, which […]

To date, IBM’s internal digital agency Interactive Experience (iX) has flown under the radar, through quiet, organic growth – reaching a global headcount of 10,000 employees. That changed Thursday when IBM iX – not to be confused with IBM’s consulting unit Global Services – revealed its first-ever acquisition: the digital/creative agency Resource/Ammirati, which has 300 […]

When many creative agencies failed to pivot into mobile, tech and media companies converged on their own solutions. “Creative agencies were disinterested in making experiences for mobile,” said James Chandler, mobile director for the GroupM agency Mindshare. After all, app-oriented mobile campaigns aren’t built around flashy art or high-production videos. While this mentality frustrated him […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Jay Friedman, COO at Goodway Group. For years it was an accepted truth: Buyers held the power in the digital advertising industry. Ad tech had effectively transferred control from sellers to buyers. When programmatic and […]

As programmatic commands a greater share of marketing budgets, trading desk knowledge will expand throughout organizations. Accuen expects its trading desk to decentralize when programmatic reaches 70% to 80% of media budgets industrywide, according to Megan Pagliuca, who became the CEO of Accuen after leaving Merkle late last year. That will happen in the next […]

Rob Norman will speak at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference, taking place in New York on January 20-21. If you were forced to name one media buying entity that sets the agenda for the rest of the industry, it would have to be WPP-owned GroupM. It was GroupM – umbrella to Mindshare, MEC, Xaxis and Essence […]

Influencer marketing found its stride in 2015, and some expect this year will bring it a big step closer to becoming a mature marketing channel. Influencer marketing has established itself as a media category, but “it will become even more important if done in an ordered and manageable way,” said Rob Norman, chief digital officer […]

For several months, IPG Mediabrands’ ad tech unit Cadreon has been testing Google’s cross-device measurement system, baked into DoubleClick advertiser products as of June. Krish Sailam, senior product manager of mobile for Cadreon, said the trading desk has run a few beta tests with advertisers, and noted conversion uplift has consistently reached the double digits. Cadreon […]

GroupM’s purchase of The Exchange Lab, a provider of marketing services and technology that connects multiple DSPs, comes at a time when agencies must tackle digital media fragmentation. While GroupM – WPP’s media-buying umbrella – faces walled gardens and siloed platforms, the Exchange Lab has a tool called Proteus, designed to provide a single interface […]

“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, COO at Goodway Group. Long ago there were only small specialty stores. Now we have Walmart, where we can buy tires, a pair of shorts, fertilizer and steaks for […]