Agencies

It’s been a little more than a year since Kepler Group was spun off (see AdExchanger’s Q&A) from MediaMath, where it had previously been the direct-to-client professional services group. So how’s it going for the world’s first independent agency to be incubated within a demand-side platform? Not bad at all. Kepler is hiring up and […]

At last week’s Merkle client summit, marketing chieftains from Geico and Travelers were present. [Record scratch here.] Wait a second – an agency has two ultra-competitve clients on its roster?  Yes, it’s true. As Merkle CEO David Williams readily admitted to AdExchanger last week, the competitive nature of clients does create sensitivity around the data […]

Annalect Group, the digital and analytics division of Omnicom Media Group, will use Salesforce.com’s Marketing Cloud to support the social marketing offerings across Omnicom’s agencies, according to the companies. Omnicom already uses various Salesforce.com products such as Radian6 and Social.com. Today’s news highlights the company’s efforts to further “bundle” its work with the cloud software […]

For major publishers that built their businesses on print and glossy magazine pages, there is a clear sense that programmatic ad sales methods are becoming mainstream. What’s less clear is how to address the problems that programmatic has forced on them, namely, the struggle over developing a common metric and how to define terms like […]

In pitching the marketer-centric audience at Merkle’s customer summit about the benefits of  DIRECTV’s addressable televison advertising product, the company’s VP of Advanced Advertising, Tom Hagopian, identified two of its challenges, too.  The first was the limited scale of the addressable TV market.  The second… “On the TV buying side, we are constantly involved in […]

Recounting an anecdote in his opening keynote yesterday at Merkle’s customer summit, Merkle CEO David Williams illustrated what a “game-changer” Facebook’s Custom Audience product has been for Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) companies like his. Williams said that Facebook executives initially told him it would not only never let email addresses match to Facebook login data […]

Pointing at its own 350 person-strong digital team and “hyper growth” for its products and services related to the digital channel, Merkle kicked off its “CRM Executive Summit” today in Charleston, South Carolina. Merkle CEO David Williams recounted for customer attendees how it was only four years ago that “the stars were aligning” and true […]

From math teacher at the US Military Academy in West Point more than 20 years ago to his new role as Chief Strategics Analytics Officer of agency DraftFCB, Ken Beatty has sampled a unique set of perspectives on data and its impact on people. Today, like any good agency “soldier,” he says he wants to […]

Twitter has shown aggressiveness over the past few months in developing its advertising business, and this morning’s global data-sharing deal with WPP Group represents another significant advancement. Read the release. The relationship is through WPP’s Data Alliance, which includes the holding company’s media buying and planning umbrella GroupM, the analytics provider Kantar and digital creative […]

WPP Group’s trading desk Xaxis is known for its proprietary approach to technology. The GroupM unit has incubated numerous ad platforms, a legacy of WPP’s 2007 acquisition of 24/7 Media. It offers these products to clients as an alternative to licensing from vendors. By contrast, trading desk rivals VivaKi AOD (Publicis), Cadreon (IPG), and Accuen (Omnicom) are […]

When Publicis Groupe launched it five years ago, VivaKi Audience On Demand was among the first holding company trading desks. And Google was its key partner, supporting a great majority of AOD’s ad serving and auction-based display media buying. But those days are over. As of Q1, Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager (formerly Invite Media) is […]

In her role as Managing Director of Connected Platforms at media agency PHD, Andrea Wolinetz helps manage client opportunities that are digital but don’t necessarily fit a silo such as “mobile” or “social.” She offers Foursquare as a prime example of this conundrum in the agency: “Should you call your mobile specialist because it’s a […]

At yesterday’s Digitas NewFront, Huffington Post executives said they would offer their native advertising content distribution system exclusively to the Publicis Groupe interactive shop’s clients. While billed as “real-time,” the self-serve content system will post marketers’ content within a two-hour window of receiving the request. “We’re bringing our year-old BrandLive service to HuffPost that will […]

Ad network Pulse 360, a subsidiary of Seevast, is on the brink of shutting down and may have closed its doors already, AdExchanger has learned. Pulse 360 issued a company-wide layoff in April and began looking for a buyer or new investor, according to a former employee who asked to remain anonymous. Pulse 360 founder […]

WPP Group has shared some new details on revenue performance and strategy for its Xaxis trading unit. Xaxis grew its revenue by 28% during the first quarter, said Pivotal Research Analyst Brian Wieser in a research note. WPP had previously stated the business had 2012 media billings of $270 million and a headcount of 200. […]

Interpublic Group has made changes to its Cadreon trading desk in North America, uprooting it from its previous home in the Mediabrands Audience Platform and repotting it in the Magna Global media investment arm. As Adweek reported earlier this month, a new entity called Magna Global North America will absorb the trading desk along with […]

Since being acquired in September 2012, Paul Cimino’s Brilig Data Exchange serves not only its own customer base but also that of its new owner, Merkle, and all of the first- and third-party data it looks to leverage on behalf of its Merkle clients across marketing campaigns. In an ongoing effort to understand how data […]

After a relatively quiet period following its acquisition by WPP Group for $540 million last year, AKQA’s executives popped up in New York on Friday to deliver what the digital agency described as an “experiment” in reaching out to clients and the media. “We wanted to give back to our customers by sharing with them […]

Marketers worldwide are pouring more money into digital ads, according to a new report from GroupM. Internet ad spending is expected to reach $113.5 billion worldwide this year, a 14.6% increase from last year and representing more than 21% of advertising budgets, reports the media buying agency, which polled marketers from 28 countries. North America […]

“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. Have you seen recent articles about the Firefox cookie-blocking privacy debate? I don’t blame those of us in the digital media community for going […]

Full-service digital agency Booyah Advertising has launched a trading desk, led by new hire Matt Thompson, previously with Mindshare in London. The trading desk will employ four people, all in Denver. Booyah the agency is part of Booyah Networks, which also owns video ad marketplace SpotXchange. Booyah Advertising did $100 million in media last year, […]

The old thinking: social media channels like Facebook and Twitter will be the death knell of traditional publishers. The new thinking: they need each other desperately. And just maybe, they can actually generate a worthwhile amount of ad dollars and audience engagement through mutual benefit. That was the consensus at the opening panel of the […]

The growth of online media has upended the way media is bought and sold, and the traditional ad agency model is under greater pressure than ever before. On one side of the office are established account planners and media buyers; on the other side sits the trading desk. A group of media agency heads kicked […]

If you’re attending an ad industry conference, it’s a safe bet you’re going to hear a lot of cheerleadering and hyperbole about how great things are. And while there are any number of ardent defenders for the ad agency model out there, few could muster a level of encouragement as spirited as the one laid […]

When you think of big consulting firms operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, names like McKinsey and Deloitte come to mind. GroupM? Not so much. But WPP Group’s media investment arm aims to change that with a new consulting unit led by Ernie Simon, previously the chief strategy officer at Omnicom’s OMD. Unlike […]

Sapient is a company with many faces, and revenue sources. About 70% of its business comes from the SapientNitro digital agency. Another 25% derives from Sapient Global Markets, which serves the capital and commodity market needs of clients in the financial and energy sectors. And 5% is in government services, where it has done work […]

RBM Co-founder and CEO Elliott Easterling is a believer. For his San Francisco-based performance marketing agency, which has broadened its scope beyond search to display as well as other channels, agile marketing works – and the $6 million in net revenue last year is the proof. Ignited by Silicon Valley startups and its agile product development […]

In a recent conversation with San Francisco-based independent agency Mediasmith and its CEO David Smith, AdExchanger discussed the company’s technology practice and how it balances the need to stay ahead of the automation of advertising while servicing the client. For CEO Smith, it begins with what he calls the Mediasmith tech stack. See it. AdExchanger: […]

By folding MPG and Media Contacts into Havas Media Group, Havas has created what it believes will be a better, integrated approach to addressing client needs.  So says Havas Media EVP of Product Development Rob Griffin who also admits that internally the agencies had become too decentralized and “siloed” into specialized business units. Griffin believes […]

“Look, complexity is our friend. There’s no doubt about it, because the more fragmented the market is and the more complex it is in terms of reaching the target audiences, it takes more very, very smart insightful people to accomplish that. That’s a long-term trend, and it continues.” “[The] technological ability to do things, and […]