Ad Agency Holding Companies

Amazon’s Alexa gets voice-activated shopping assistant ads; AI-affiliated Super PACs are the big spenders this midterms; and P&G throws cold water on the agency “one-stop shop” model.

There is a myth that end-to-end platforms and sheer quantity of data yield efficiency and competitive advantage. But most clients need flexible, modular solutions that address their needs and work with their existing tech stacks.

Generative AI is the new ad land obsession: a shiny promise of a fully autonomous world of self-driving advertising.  But behind the hype lies the costly delusion that automation can replace judgment and more content somehow means better marketing. We’ve entered the age of machine-made abundance, where content can be generated faster than it can […]

Two sources at ad tech platforms that observe programmatic bidding patterns said they’ve seen Omnicom agencies shifting spend from The Trade Desk to Amazon DSP in Q3. The Trade Desk denies any such shift.

Publicis celebrates as its growth aligns with the IAB’s downgraded ad spend projection; Spotify and Netflix partner to chase YouTube’s video podcast biz; and how investor cash keeps health data safe from advertisers.

Google’s search antitrust trial ends with a whimper; the pitfalls of agency-owned SSPs; Perplexity axes its ads business; and brands are still building big-ticket metaverse experiences.

Is TTD forcing agencies to adopt the new Kokai interface despite claims they can still use the interface of their choice? Here’s what we were able to find out.

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

Critics say the FTC’s deal with OMG/IPG prohibits agency practices that don’t exist. And it distracts from legitimate concerns about brand safety news blocking and principal media.

Despite publicly hyping AI, advertisers remain privately skeptical; AI aims to replace agencies, but tech complexity makes them more valuable partners; and Americans aren’t paying for news.

As the newly appointed president of Horizon Media Holdings, Bob Lord is dubious that megamergers between holding companies are actually good for the client. “Bigger is not always better,” Lord says.

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

Trap More Flies With Honey Honey, a free browser extension that automatically finds and applies discount codes, is being accused of defrauding its users and the online content creators who championed it. That’s according to a YouTube tech investigator who goes by MegaLag. He alleges that the PayPal-owned Honey effectively steals the credit for online […]

Publishers expect the agencies will eliminate tech redundancies as they consolidate, which could compel pubs to shed redundant tech themselves. The merger could also entrench principal-based buying, which may not be a bad thing.

Publicis outperforms its agency holding company rivals because of three primary factors: technology strategy, leadership and deal-making.

Google Fails To Deliver In 2014, Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt raised eyebrows when he referred to Amazon as Google’s primary search opponent, rather than Yahoo or Bing.  Fast-forward eight years, and Amazon is now its obvious challenger, and Google has utterly failed to address its own ecommerce vulnerabilities, according to a LinkedIn post by Faisal […]

A year ago, all the major ad agency holding companies were digging themselves out of a deep hole, as investors hedged their bets on the return of ad budgets and even the survival of traditional agencies. Fast forward one year – and what a difference that year has made. Omnicom lost more than a third […]