Welcome to episode No. 19 of AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. Since its acquisition by GroupM in 2015, digital agency Essence has played a “quasi-ambassadorial role” between GroupM and its client Google, Essence co-founder and Chief Product Officer Andrew Shebbeare says in the latest episode of AdExchanger Talks. “We’re trying to […]
GroupM digital agency Essence on Thursday launched a data strategy unit, its latest shift in an ongoing reorg around audience-based planning and buying. To lead the new unit, Essence has tapped Jon Taylor, previously VP of operations and audience insights at Dun & Bradstreet. The data strategy team will guide clients through platform selection and […]
Snapchat is credited with jumpstarting the vertical video trend earlier this year, but now the format is really starting to hit its stride. That’s out of necessity, said Ari Brandt, CEO and co-founder of mobile ad platform MediaBrix, which on Thursday rolled out a new version of its SDK that supports vertically shot in-app video […]
This is the fourth installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with Nazanin Jazayeri, Andrew Klein and Ella Chinitz. When Freddie Liversidge joined Essence in 2013, the agency’s programmatic practice he was tasked with building out had just three people. Now it has […]
If the UK follows through with its decision to leave the European Union, industry experts say London won’t lose its throne as the epicenter of European advertising. It will, however, have to adjust as the world transacts differently with the British media market. The country is expected to invest twice as much in digital media […]
“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 Alastair Boyle, global client partner and head of strategy at Essence. Although artificial intelligence (AI) can help advertisers be more compassionate, it isn’t without potential pitfalls. I have previously argued […]
After two years as director of mobile for North America at Essence, Jeremy Sigel is pleased that his position has become obsolete – and he has advice for mobile chiefs at other agencies. “Don’t hold onto mobile,” said Sigel, who stepped down as head of mobile on Tuesday and stepped up as global director of […]
Essence co-founder and chief product officer Andrew Shebbeare will discuss fraud, lack of transparency and misaligned incentives in the ad ecosystem at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. Andrew Shebbeare says the ad industry is at a tipping point. The acceleration of consumer ad blocking and uncertainty around viewability and fraud […]
“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 Alastair Boyle, global client partner and head of strategy at Essence. You might be surprised to hear these words in the same sentence, but compassion has been a core concept […]
GroupM’s purchase of The Exchange Lab, a provider of marketing services and technology that connects multiple DSPs, comes at a time when agencies must tackle digital media fragmentation. While GroupM – WPP’s media-buying umbrella – faces walled gardens and siloed platforms, the Exchange Lab has a tool called Proteus, designed to provide a single interface […]
GroupM hopes its purchase of digital/media agency Essence on Wednesday (for undisclosed terms) will add a whole lot of Google expertise into WPP’s cluster of media agencies. After all, the formerly independent Essence is Google’s digital agency of record. “Google, as you might imagine, is keen on its global digital agency using the full set […]
“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 Mark Syal, joint managing director and director of media practice, EMEA, at Essence. Averages can hide a multitude of sins. As a media planner, you need to know that every […]
Microsoft isn’t the advertising behemoth it once aspired to be when it purchased aQuantive for $6 billion in 2007. Since then, Microsoft has mostly been a publisher, selling inventory both directly and programmatically across its Microsoft Network (MSN) family of sites, its Outlook email portal, Skype and Xbox. Following the Microsoft-AOL search and display deal, […]
“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 Andrew Shebbeare, founding partner and global innovation director at Essence. I believe we are entering the second age of programmatic. If the first phase of this revolution was characterized by […]
“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 Andrew Shebbeare, founding partner and global innovation director at Essence. Awesome. We have the tools to optimize in real time. Unfortunately, brand marketers can’t measure success in real time. Not […]
It’s a tradition as revered as turkey on Thanksgiving and baseball in the summer: ad agencies dumping budget at the end of each quarter so they won’t lose it at the beginning of the next. “There’s an artificial market dynamic that resets every month in programmatic where at the end of every quarter, we see […]
“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 Andrew Shebbeare, founding partner and global innovation director at Essence. It’s a slightly sensationalist headline, I admit. It’s been a while since I contributed to this series and I […]
There’s a new guy in charge at Essence, the 9-year-old agency best known as a key partner to Google on its programmatic and other marketing activities. London-based Essence has promoted Christian Juhl, previously in charge of its North American operations, to run the company as global CEO. With his promotion, founder and previous CEO Matt […]
Digital agency Essence has hired Oscar Garza, formerly of Electronic Arts (EA), to lead a new effort to bring programmatic buying solutions to clients in North America. Garza started this week as director of programmatic and audience, tasked with building a new team based out of Essence’s San Francisco office. As director of acquisition for […]
Marking up cheap Facebook inventory has been a lucrative business for a range of companies in its Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) ecosystem. And Facebook is fine with that practice, just so long as it’s clear to advertisers just how big of a cut their partners are taking. But do advertisers know, and do they care? […]
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 […]
