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 company, according to Annalect CEO Scott Hagedorn.
“We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Salesforce,” Hagedorn said. “One of the things we’re interested in doing is creating microcampaigns around our CRM data that will allow us to deliver more dynamic content and bring down the silos between our data.”
Omnicom will dive deeper into Salesforce.com by adopting its entire Marketing Cloud. The company plans to apply the Marketing Cloud’s offerings – which include social listening capabilities through Radian6, publishing with Buddy Media and advertising with Social.com – to better leverage data and insights for its 5,000+ clients. The Omnicom deal follows Salesforce.com’s recent acquisition of the digital marketing platform ExactTarget and business intelligence tool Edge Spring, whose functionalities are expected to be added to the Marketing Cloud as well.
In addition, Omnicom and Salesforce.com will create a number of “social media command centers” that will consist of consultants, portable kiosks and mobile apps in Omnicom agency hubs in London, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
“This new agreement with Omnicom is a great opportunity for us to help Omnicom better harness its data and create ads that are more closely aligned to what people are interested in and their shopping behaviors,” noted Gordon Evans, VP of marketing at Salesforce.com.
Similar to the way that its competitor Publicis Groupe directs digital-media buying and tools through a unit called VivaKi, Omnicom formed Annalect Group three years ago to centralize its digital-media tools and buying power, tapping former PHD US CEO Scott Hagedorn to head it.
But whereas Publicis Groupe has built out its digital offerings by acquiring firms like Rosetta, Razorfish and Digitas, Omnicom has largely obtained its digital capabilities through integrations with other companies such as with digital marketing provider Kenshoo, digital ad company MediaMind and now Salesforce.com.
At a recent earnings call, Salesforce.com CEO and founder Marc Benioff re-affirmed the cloud software company’s plans to become “number one” in marketing solutions.
