Agencies

“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 Stephanie Russell, vice president of enterprise solutions at Merkle.  Data-driven marketers now have the ability to target individual people – not just cookies – in so many types of media, […]

Judging from last week’s news, it’s tempting to say GroupM has got the programmatic religion. But that might be selling the holding company short. WPP Group’s media-buying arm, which controls $106 billion in global ad spending, last week promoted Xaxis CEO Brian Lesser to a big new job running its North America business. His elevation […]

Everyone talks about TV dollars leaking into digital, but what happens behind the scenes to make those dollars move? Vic Walia, senior director of brand marketing for Expedia, said it involves change management and rewiring old assumptions. “We’ve always invested heavily in TV as a brand, but we wanted to extend our reach beyond our […]

GroupM hopes its purchase of digital/media agency Essence on Wednesday (for undisclosed terms) will add a whole lot of Google expertise into WPP’s cluster of media agencies. After all, the formerly independent Essence is Google’s digital agency of record. “Google, as you might imagine, is keen on its global digital agency using the full set […]

It might surprise those who think of Merkle as only a CRM agency to hear it has a media practice that employs 400. Although the division has taken four years to construct, Merkle has over the past several months recruited a handful of media agency heavyweights (including ex-Razorfish COO Michael Komasinski) to help support its […]

NBCUniversal transacted 10-15% of its digital business programmatically during the 2015-2016 season, the company has revealed to AdExchanger. Prior to the upfronts, the company expected to secure 50% of commitments on a “converged” basis, with elements of both TV and digital in a single deal. In this most recent upfront, NBCUniversal’s digital business grew 50% and, of […]

Programmatic continues to help more than hurt the agency conglomerates, or at least it has for the largest US holding company Omnicom Group. Omnicom continues to see notable growth from its trading desk, although the growth rate has slowed. The company’s Accuen exchange-buying unit delivered an incremental $25 million in spending growth during the third […]

Television may be a little late to the programmatic party, but addressable TV promises to blend performance efficiencies with proven sales lift – and that’s changing the face of the TV buy. Media agencies were historically agents of the upper funnel, but data and technology are redefining the awareness and consideration phase. “A client used […]

“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. Will the ad-free experience of the future only be available to consumers who pay enough to prevent the ads from being shown? The table is […]

Marketers are known for a near obsession with data – metrics, iteration and ROI – but a string of CMOs at this year’s ANA Masters of Marketing conference avoided the firm ground of data and measurement in favor risk-taking and experiential concerns. “Advertising isn’t dead, but it’s craving courage,” said Arby’s CMO Robert Lynch, pointing to […]

Mobile agency Fetch is in serious growth mode. It’s been just shy of a year since Fetch became part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, which reportedly shelled out around $48 million in November 2014 to buy the London-based agency. Although Fetch still maintains its global headquarters in London, CEO and co-founder James Connelly said that […]

While it has become typical for industry watchers to declare that the mobile web is suffering at the expense of apps’ success, a report Monday revealed consumers use both at almost equal levels. “The New Mobile Mantra,” from WPP’s research unit, Millward Brown Digital, found that of the 30 most-visited mobile properties, browser and app […]

Sony Pictures TV thinks there’s power in remaining subscription-free. In the case of its free streaming premium video network Crackle, which clocks 22 million monthly uniques, it promises brand partners a 93% ad completion rate and an engaged audience. Sony Crackle in April staged its first upfront presentation. “Because we see ourselves as a TV […]

Longtime agency exec Julian Zilberbrand will join Viacom as EVP of Audience Science, the company revealed Friday. His transition comes at a time when Viacom is renewing its emphasis on data to address the slumps in linear TV ad sales and plummeting ratings. Zilberbrand will lead Audience Science, a Viacom unit that manages audience onboarding […]

When most people think about experiential advertising – like sponsoring a music festival or finding a way to showcase Coca-Cola into the Olympics without actually buying an ad – few consider it data-driven. Lucien Boyer, global president and CEO of Havas Sports & Entertainment for the past seven years, has focused exclusively on these unblockable […]

The merger of comScore and Rentrak, announced Tuesday, creates a powerful new player providing unified digital and offline measurement. The deal poses a real challenge to Nielsen, which nevertheless is not about to be overthrown as the reining champ of marketing and media measurement. Pending regulatory approval, comScore will begin to combine its digital audience measurement […]

“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 by Matt Naeger, executive vice president of strategy and analytics for Merkle’s Digital Agency Group. Addressable marketing is not new – we’ve been doing it for many years in the offline world. […]

Google said Monday it will let marketers use their first-party CRM data to target specific users based on hashed email addresses. The product is called Customer Match. While Facebook and Twitter both enable CRM matching, that Google now allows it constitutes “a seminal shift for first-party, addressable targeting,” said Merkle’s EVP of digital strategy, Matt […]

Merkle, which bills itself as one of the industry’s largest privately held agencies, is moving beyond database services into tech territory. The company on Monday launched MerkleOne, its version of a people-based marketing platform for advertisers and publishers, including inaugural sell-side partner News Corp. “M1 will enable advertisers to bring their own data, anonymize IDs […]

Pirated content and ad fraud are like a nefarious version of peanut butter and jelly – but there’s not lot of awareness in the industry about their connection. “The people who create pirate sites are the same ones who perpetrate clickbot fraud – they’re the ones who spread malware and create the armies of bots that generate […]

Global media powerhouse Carat has lowered its 2015 global ad spending forecast from 4.6% to 4.0%, reaching $529 billion, in the wake of a similar ad sector demotion from rival agency group Zenith Optimedia. “That’s the new normal [for growth],” said Jonathan Barnard, Zenith’s UK-based head of forecasting. Barnard cited volatility in the eurozone, slowdowns […]

As agencies face increasing pressure to produce more content with shrinking budgets, some are streamlining production with in-house capabilities. At least, that’s what WPP had in mind when in 2009 it partnered with Hogarth Worldwide, a global marketing implementation firm. As a sister organization to WPP, Hogarth acts as a production and global distribution resource […]

Rob Norman, GroupM’s global chief digital officer, foresees a future without fragmentation. He also expects more walled gardens, although “walled” won’t necessarily mean “closed.” Speaking on Thursday at DMEXCO in Germany, Norman outlined how agencies and advertisers will adapt to the rise of a handful of major consumer platforms and applications. “When you think about […]

Brands are on the constant hunt for engaged audiences. It’s why they attend upfronts for television, NewFronts for digital, future fronts for programmatic, podcast upfronts for audio – and, now, AppFronts for apps. General Electric hosted its first AppFronts on Tuesday in New York City, gathering together an audience of brands and agencies for an event […]

Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi will officially release a tool called Quality Index (QI) at the end of this month, designed to streamline inventory sources, manage multiple KPIs and cross-check viewability. QI has been in Beta since late 2014, and will be part of an internal UI called the VivaKi Operating System (VOS) Platform that VivaKi is building […]

The ongoing media reviews have created inroads for agencies to use creative, informed by data, as a strategy to win new business. In a bid to take advantage of this growing opportunity, Initiative, the IPG Mediabrands-owned agency, hired Nick Childs as its first-ever global chief creative officer on Sept. 1. “As a lot of media […]

The digital media industry is mourning Curt Hecht. Hecht passed away this week at the age of 47, ending a brilliant 26-year career at Publicis Groupe and The Weather Company. His death has come as a shock to many, not only because of Hecht’s intellectual and physical vigor but also because he chose to keep […]

“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 Adam Mincham, vice president and associate client partner at Merkle. There is a lot of talk about the nuances in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing spaces and how […]

Correction: The original version of the story included incorrect data indicating Publicis Groupe had the most to lose in the “pitchapalooza” wave of agency reviews currently underway. In fact, Omnicom Group and Dentsu are slightly more exposed. The below story makes that clear and includes a corrected chart reflecting actual impact on revenues for the […]

Interpublic Group’s global media arm, IPG Mediabrands, has hired Charles Godbold as global director of media intelligence systems. Godbold starts Oct. 1 and will report to IPG Mediabrands global CEO Henry Tajer. Godbold is the founder of Media Pilot Pty Ltd., a consultancy that developed media analytics, and media auditing firm Mediasenz Pty Ltd. In […]