A progenitor of the agency trading desk concept and key advocate for programmatic buying within the agency world is leaving his multifaceted role at MDC Partners. For the past six years, Darren Herman’s business cards have carried titles including chief digital media officer at MDC media agency The Media Kitchen; CDMO at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal […]
Latin America marks great opportunity for media buyers and brands looking to monetize and scale their reach in emerging markets. In Mexico alone, eMarketer estimates total media ad spend was $5.2 billion in 2012. Yet understanding the cultural nuances of each Latin American country is as important as the financial and operational intricacies of the […]
Resonate has debuted a platform that measures consumers’ online motivations to help agencies better target campaigns across mobile, social and video. Dubbed Resonate Analytics for Agencies, the software is based on 4-year-old technology that statistically models people’s behavior online against in-depth, survey-based knowledge about their personal values to track how those values motivate the way […]
On Omnicom Group’s Q3 earnings call last week, CEO John Wren waxed poetic for a few minutes about the holding company’s investment in data, calling out a new director of applied data position at agency RAPP. Loren Grossman, the guy filling out that role, is charged with “deriving actions” from data platforms including DMPs, CRM systems […]
Deloitte Digital’s acquisition today of Seattle-based digital social media marketing agency Banyan Branch is a strong indicator that the management consultancy is vying for more agency share. Banyan’s 50-person team, which is broken down into social analytics/insights, engineering and design — as well as audience marketing talent, which Banyan defines as advocate/influencer activation and social […]
The lawyers may be scurrying and the deal fees mounting, but Omnicom and Publicis are still on track to complete their $35 billion megamerger by early 2014. The companies are making slow but steady progress on achieving regulatory approval for the deal, Omnicom CEO John Wren told investors on the company’s Q3 earnings call this morning. […]
Emmett Shine’s Bowery-based agency Gin Lane Media is not your everyday 25-person creative shop. The agency had early roots in women’s apparel; its founder and CEO began T-shirt company LOLA New York in 2005 while circumnavigating the downtown New York design and art scene. After securing a number of small projects that landed SeamlessWeb and […]
MAGNA GLOBAL Research has issued a new report this morning chock full of data that shows robust growth in programmatic buying of digital media. For starters, the company says that in the U.S. programmatic inventory (display, mobile, social, video) will hit $7.4 billion this year. Of that, $3.9 billion will be real-time biddable, which $3.5 […]
Essence has made another key hire from the Razorfish talent pool with its appointment of Christian Juhl as the digital agency’s CEO of North America. Juhl arrives from his former post as president, West, at Razorfish, where he managed four offices with a focus on integrated media, creative and technology lines of business. Essence, in […]
There’s a bright future for agencies in being effective purveyors of first-party data, said Brian Krick, the newest head of North American search and biddable for digital agency Essence. But, he said, they have to be willing to have tough conversations and break down barriers. Weaning channel-specific marketers off artificially inflated CPAs that don’t reflect true incremental revenue […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
