Agencies

With support from Google, WPP-owned GroupM announced a new initiative to integrate Privacy Sandbox tests into the media plans of select clients over the coming year.

Dentsu launched a set of identity solutions for Merkury, its identity resolution platform, on Tuesday. The identity solutions try to create a single customer view for marketers.

“It’s an open secret that the industry has challenges, and not just the challenges people talk about publicly,” says Joshua Lowcock, who recently left IPG’s UM for a role at Quad Media.

IPG is floundering. The agency holding company was roughed up in the first two quarters of 2023, and its organic revenue growth declined by 0.4%, with a 1.2% decrease in the US, according to an earnings report on Friday.  

On Monday, PMG acquired Camelot, an independent media and marketing agency that specializes in buying video, OTT and CTV. This acquisition marks PMG’s first since its founding 13 years ago.

Political advertising restrictions are among the challenges that direct marketing agency MissionWired helps its progressive nonprofits and political campaign clients tackle.

Organic revenue growth for IPG sank 1.7% YOY, with a 2.5% drop in the US. The holding company said a weakened tech sector is partly to blame.

Agency holding company Omnicom’s going all in on generative AI – a topic that dominated its earnings call Tuesday.

On Tuesday, agency holding company Stagwell reported $622 million in Q1 revenue – a 3% decrease year over year – and $53 million in Q1 net-new business, a 1% decrease YoY, according to CFO Frank Lanuto. The company’s stock was down nearly 10% on the news.

Freddie Liversidge, HP’s global head of media, explains the benefits and challenges of building an in-house digital media agency from the ground up.

Agency holding company WPP met its own expectations in the first quarter of the year. Standout GroupM, its media buying and planning agency, contributed to about 36% of WPP’s Q1 revenue, growing 6.1% in Q1.

Health care organizations need to embrace fluidity and experimentation if they want to market to the diverse US population they rely on to survive.

One-third of Publicis Group’s revenue comes from its data and tech business, which includes Epsilon and Publicis Sapient. Maintaining a differentiated revenue mix is one reason why Publicis is growing faster than the global economy, particularly since the pandemic, chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun told investors on Thursday.

Omnicom saw 5.2% organic revenue growth, or $178.7 million YoY, in the first quarter of 2023. The agency holding company reported total revenues of $3.44 billion, with net income up by 30.9% to $227.5 million, according to the company’s earnings call Tuesday.

Health care marketers are often in the business of reminding consumers of their diagnoses and getting them to change their behaviors for their own good. Andy Semons explains how IPNY works with neuroscientists to design persuasive, relatable and empathetic health care communication materials for different communities.

Health data and race are sensitive topics on their own. Put them together, and it’s easy to see why people struggle to thoughtfully tailor their marketing efforts to different audiences. Still, many health care marketers are opting in to race-based targeting to stay relevant and reach underserved populations.

We asked agency experts: With TikTok under the microscope and a potential US ban looming, what are you advising brands do?

Despite a sluggish macroeconomic environment and jittery consumers and businesses, US media ad spend is expected to increase by 3.4% in 2023, according to a Magna forecast released Monday.

“You don’t have to know everything” as a DEI expert, said Femi Olu-Lafe, a 2022 Top Women honoree in the DEI Champions category. As Kinesso’s SVP of global culture and culture, Olu-Lafe stays curious and open to learning from others.

Tinuiti CMO Dalton Dorné started her career in China during an explosive growth period for the country and learned to thrive in rapidly changing environments.

Generative AI is the talk of the town. At creative and media agencies, everyone from designers to copywriters to marketing leaders are giving generative AI programs like ChatGPT and DALL-E a try.

Companies are relying on AI to help them treat their current and prospective employees more like their customers. Despite layoffs in some sectors, there is still a labor shortage, and employers continue to feel the aftershocks of the pandemic and the Great Resignation.

The ad agency holding company WPP is on the up and up and remains confident in its clients’ continued investment in marketing projects despite a challenging macroeconomic environment. WPP is “well positioned to deliver sustainable, long-term growth” after seeing broad-based growth in 2022, said CEO Mark Read during the company’s earnings report on Thursday.

Growth marketing firm Power Digital has acquired marketing consultancy Sproutward to strengthen its data and analytics chops. The acquisition is Power Digital’s fifth in the last four years.

The integration is the latest sign that agencies are getting serious about supply-path optimization (SPO) by forging direct relationships with SSPs. It also illustrates the need for SSPs to differentiate themselves from their peers by providing publishers and broadcasters with unique connections to demand sources.

Independent performance agency Tinuiti is making a bigger push into social with the acquisition of growth marketing shop Ampush on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Boathouse launched a product called Narrative Transformation through partnerships with consumer and market intelligence platforms Signal AI and NetBase Quid. The tool helps brands “cut through the clutter, get to the 10 or 15 most important conversations and give actionable insights,” said Boathouse President Peter Prodromou.

Goodway Group has chosen Jay Friedman as CEO. Friedman assumes the chief executive position after more than 16 years at the company, most recently as president. Former CEO David Wolk moves into the role of executive chairman.

In the face of persistent economic uncertainty, marketers are simultaneously hustling to satisfy quickly changing consumer appetites and striving to squeeze the value out of every last marketing dollar. Not to mention needing to adopt full-funnel marketing approaches and allocate spend to channels as flexibly as possible.

In October, Anagram spun off from programmatic platform Digilant and relaunched as a full-service media agency. Since then, it’s set its sights on serving the little guys: midmarket brands.