Agencies

Notice how the cover-up of scandal is often worse than the original misdeed? The same is true when it comes to the appearance of a conflict of interest – if it looks like a conflict, you’ve got a conflict. That’s ultimately what led Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Laura Desmond to resign from the board of […]

Automation Is Coming. In panel after panel at New York’s Advertising Week, publishers and agencies heaped hate on ad selling inefficiencies and delivered eulogies for their mutual adversary, the insertion order. The big questions: Which players will be first to seize the automation grail? And how long will it take? The holding company trading desks […]

Mark Weninger, chief creative officer at Merkle, said there’s growing clamor outside of the creative fortress. Taking the stage at Advertising Week on behalf of the customer relationship-marketing agency, he alluded to a force that’s “armed with zetabytes of numbers and analysis.” The new competitive differentiator in advertising is the person or platform that holds […]

Was Bob Lord the only beam bracing the dam at Razorfish? The Publicis-owned shop lost another bigwig this morning with the exit of Chairman Clark Kokich for a new job as chief strategy officer at Marchex. Kokich was a mainstay at Razorfish, having previously been CEO and president. Tallying the headcount losses, Razorfish has lost […]

“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. I thought the days when companies promised awesome algorithms without offering any details were over. Companies like AppNexus or DataXu are transparent […]

WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell takes an increasingly broad view of his competitors. In addition to the company’s two largest agency holding company rivals, Interpublic and Publicis/Omnicom (the future Publicis Omnicom Group), and smaller players Havas Media and Dentsu/Aegis, he says the company now competes broadly with Internet giants, researchers and data firms. “We […]

Critical Mass has lasting expertise in analytics. The digital agency specializes in optimizing websites and other user experiences by placing data at the center. For some clients, such as Nissan, it acts as the measurement hub for all shops in the roster. The agency’s Marketing Science group is led by Shaina Boone, who oversees about 30 […]

More advertisers are running in-house “agency” units in 2013 than did five years ago, according to a new survey from the Association of National Advertisers. The change is driven in part by the weak global economy, but also could be chalked up to digital acceleration – including data/analytics and social imperatives. The survey of 203 […]

Rockfish has added 100 staffers since its acquisition by WPP Digital in 2011, expanding from its anchor office in Arkansas to Chicago, Austin and Atlanta. Now the agency is in the midst of constructing a digital CRM practice. Citing growing client demand for CRM-related services, Rockfish’s SVP & Chief Strategy Officer Dawn Maire noted a […]

This story continues our series on programmatic media in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Check out our earlier pieces on Brazil and Russia. The final installation, on China, will publish in the coming weeks. India’s growing Internet population would seem to make it a prime market for RTB and programmatic buying. But the […]

With agencies continuing to voice concern about their battles with clients’ procurement officers, some high-profile agency executives have called to pay for performance. Perhaps they should look no further than today’s direct-response business — traditionally driven by search advertising — where agencies like WPP GroupM’s Quisma have been operating for more than a decade. Quisma continues […]

This week saw the formal launch of a marketing services company geared to entertainment clients. Water Cooler Group contains four agency brands – Maude (offering creative and strategy), Media Storm (planning and buying), Hip Genius (social media) and Bolt (for iTV). Among its clients are Food Network, MLB Network, Major League Soccer, Viggle, and cable […]

The guys who came up with Interpublic Group’s display ad-trading strategy have embarked together on a joint consulting venture. Their new company, Unbound, will serve as a systems integrator to brands and publishers as they make decisions about programmatic ad technologies. “We saw a pretty big gap in the marketplace. There’s no real technology-and-service systems […]

Interpublic Group is making good on recent pledge to automate 50% of its cross-channel buying activity by 2016. The holding company’s Mediabrands division has signed up a group of broadcast partners to install an automated media buying system that will span TV, radio, and digital out-of-home ads. The list of the IPG Mediabrands’ initial partners […]

Fees remain the most common way for marketers to compensate advertising agencies, according to the 2013 Trends in Agency Compensation survey released by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Out of 98 client-side marketers, 81% indicated that they continue to use some type of fee compensation for various agency types and services. Labor-based fees, which […]

Media agencies have more influence than ever, thanks to the runaway train of audience fragmentation and the infrastructure/manpower needed to address it. This trend is nicely articulated by Publicis Groupe’s acquisition of digital agency Engauge Marketing – not because Engauge is a digital media agency (it’s not) but rather because it’s a creative and content-centric […]

GroupM has lowered its global ad spending forecast for the second year running. The media investment arm of WPP cited Eurozone weakness as the main reason why it expects 2013 ad growth of 3.4%, instead of the 4.5% it previously predicted. Argentine currency volatility, a wobbly Japan and Egypt’s chaos were secondary reasons. The five […]

AOL is not taking its foot off the programmatic gas pedal, and agencies are impressed. The $405-million acquisition of video ad platform Adap.tv sheds new light on other recent developments, including the hire of Razorfish’s global CEO Bob Lord to lead AOL Networks and a planned “programmatic upfront” event in September. Their obvious conclusion: AOL’s […]

Its $405 million acquisition of video ad marketplace Adap.tv closes two big loops for AOL. The first is around video, which has become a bigger part of both its and rival Yahoo’s strategies. Both portals have doubled down on original video content creation, but AOL has looked to video as an ad-tech solution, whereas Yahoo […]

Here’s a far out option for Publicis and Omnicom as they attempt to fit their trading desk units together: Allow the smaller of the two, Omnicom’s Accuen, to continue as a standalone unit to manage clients that are competitive with Publicis’s Vivaki AOD. It would be the programmatic equivalent of a “conflict shop.” Last week, […]

“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 Paul Chu, vice president of advertiser solutions and RTB at PubMatic.   The recent news of the merger between Omnicom and Publicis shook the advertising world, and, like everyone […]

Razorfish’s global chief media officer has resigned, becoming the latest seasoned digital exec to exit a Publicis-owned agency. Jeff Lanctot’s departure, first reported by Digiday, comes close on the heels of Razorfish CEO Bob Lord’s exit for the top job at AOL Networks. Speaking with AdExchanger, Lanctot said Lord’s exit was a motivating factor but […]

Last year MediaMath Sales VP Charles Cantu approached his CEO, Joe Zawadzki, to give his notice. He had gotten a competitive job offer that included a major pay raise and the opportunity to manage a team. Zawadzki asked him, “What do you want to do after this?” Cantu replied, “I want to run my own […]

The combined media spending of Publicis Groupe and Omnicom would amount to roughly $53 billion, according to separate sets of data from Pivotal Research’s Brian Wieser and WPP analytics unit Kantar Media. That translates into a tremendous amount of buying clout. Major publishers across all media continued to absorb the news from this weekend about […]

As news of the Publicis-Omnicom mega merger settles, questions remain about what this means for the advertising landscape. AdExchanger reached out to venture capitalists who fuel much of the ad market and asked them this question: “What impact do you expect the merger will have on ad tech and venture capital, if any?” Click or […]

What does the marketer really think about the Omnicom-Publicis marriage? Intuit’s Head of Online Acquisition, Cezanne Huq, shared his thoughts on the merger, which is partially informed by his own company’s agency services needs as well as his background in the services world.   Though he declines to say exactly which agencies Intuit works with today for competitive reasons, […]

The differentiator is: Who holds the data? Immediately following the Publicis-Omnicom mega-merger that came on a sunny Sunday afternoon in France, a couple of questions remained. To what extent was the deal motivated by technology-driven changes in marketing? And what are the deal’s implications for consumer tech titans like Google, Twitter and Facebook? “If you […]

As analysis of the merger of Publicis and Omnicom Group rages on, one of the critical challenges ahead for the combined entity appears to be “conflict of interest.” AdExchanger’s Zach Rodgers reported yesterday when the merger announcement was made, Omnicom CEO John Wren was non-chalant about potential conflicts: “Shared clients contributed over $6.5 billion in […]

As more advertising dollars pour into digital — and into agency trading desks — the exchange model’s momentum is likely to continue, no matter what level of integration comes from the merger of Publicis Groupe and Omnicom. Several executives who have served with the trading-desk side of the agency business and moved on said that […]

Tim Hanlon is Founder and CEO of consulting firm Vertere Group. As a former key executive within Publicis, Hanlon’s years of experience provide him a unique view into today’s announced merger of agency holding companies Publicis Groupe and Omnicom Group.   AdExchanger asked Hanlon about his “take” on the blockbuster combination earlier today. AdExchanger: Did you […]