After a three-year stint as Havas CEO, David Jones realized the agency model needed more than a revamp. It needed a complete restart. “It got to a point where it would be far easier to build a technology company that does marketing than to try to change a big legacy business into that,” he said. […]
Canned audiences are as stale as cigarette smoke in an old casino. That’s why MGM Resorts International is looking for alternatives to what Kelly Smith, MGM’s SVP and chief digital officer, calls “black-box syndicated segments.” In its quest for custom audience activation, MGM is kicking the tires on a new self-serve data marketplace offering from […]
Last year, when Publicis Groupe said it would pull out of the Cannes Lions festival and awards show and reinvest the funds in an artificial intelligence platform, it sparked other holding companies to rethink their presences. Many had become concerned that the festival, which takes place every June along the beach in the south of […]
The past year was a tough one for agency holding companies. WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, IPG, Dentsu Aegis Network and Havas posted little to no growth in 2017. The agency business has been in flux for years, but 2017 offered the “perfect storm” of challenges that caused growth to stutter, said Greg Paull, principal analyst […]
With the explosion of cross-screen TV, publishers and advertisers are clamoring for better discovery, personalization and cataloging of video content, and metadata is answering that call. Metadata, put simply, adds more context to data. Metadata in video can range from the contents of that video (e.g., colors, products, characters) to the way it’s classified (e.g., […]
For Gabrielle Rossetti, leading innovation and strategy for Havas sometimes means acting as a scout on behalf of brand clients. Even if a tool doesn’t fit into a client’s tactical tool kit, Rossetti’s team can help them build a blueprint for the future. “It’s about helping them understand where they can innovate and the technologies […]
Clients want more insight into the complicated process of programmatic buying. So French holding company Havas on Tuesday launched the Client Trading Solution (CTS), a customizable dashboard that allows advertisers to track their programmatic campaigns and fees across different demand-side platforms (DSPs) and exchanges in real time. So far, Spanish telco Telefónica is using the […]
French media conglomerate Vivendi on Thursday made a bid for the Bolloré Group’s 60% stake in agency holding company Havas at roughly 9.25 euros per share. The offer values the Bolloré Group’s stake at 2.36 billion euros. Read the release. Yannick Bolloré is CEO of Havas and the son of Vincent Bolloré, chairman and CEO […]
Havas Media is going through a brain change thanks to IBM and Watson developer Equals 3. While Havas’s relationship with IBM goes back for decades, it was mostly on the creative side. But Havas Media has over the past year been installing and training a Watson-powered artificial intelligence (AI) solution – in the form of […]
For the big six holding companies, 2016 was a year of acquisitions, restructures, reviews and leadership shakeups, centering expertise around data and digital. But they also engaged in strategies at odds with best practices and client interests. Faced with shrinking margins and rising technology costs, holding companies found new ways to eke revenue – methods […]
With major upfront negotiations winding down, Fox, NBC and ABC hope to emulate CBS’ strong showing, which reportedly saw CPM hikes in the low double digits and about 5% higher sales volume. Networks have the leverage this year to command higher prices because of the present scarcity, say buyers. National TV networks reported 19% more revenue […]
The out-of-home market is turning its real-world infrastructure into a tool for data-driven digital media. An OOH campaign nowadays for a CPG client may look more like a tapestry of strategic relationships. The media provider may allow some mobile tracking (in the US that probably means Outfront or Clear Channel, which together account for a […]
Hours after the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union, its most prominent ad industry employee is feeling… well, in his own words: “Very disappointed, but the electorate has spoken.” WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell told AdExchanger in a statement that “The resulting uncertainty, which will be considerable, will obviously slow decision-making and […]
When Pandora announced its intent in November to acquire the assets of Rdio, it was reportedly an attempt to make up an ad revenue shortfall. Though people increasingly listen to online radio, with 143 million each month this year (the number has doubled since 2010, according to Edison Research), streaming services are still working out approaches […]
When most people think about experiential advertising – like sponsoring a music festival or finding a way to showcase Coca-Cola into the Olympics without actually buying an ad – few consider it data-driven. Lucien Boyer, global president and CEO of Havas Sports & Entertainment for the past seven years, has focused exclusively on these unblockable […]
Correction: The original version of the story included incorrect data indicating Publicis Groupe had the most to lose in the “pitchapalooza” wave of agency reviews currently underway. In fact, Omnicom Group and Dentsu are slightly more exposed. The below story makes that clear and includes a corrected chart reflecting actual impact on revenues for the […]
In his four years as Havas NA’s SVP of marketing analytics and data consulting, Leon Barsoumian has worked to marry programmatic and analytics. From a programmatic standpoint, the French holding company has two key offerings, Affiperf and Artemis. In 2010, Havas debuted Affiperf, a global trading desk that Havas calls a “Meta DSP” and is […]
One of Google’s themes, when it announced it was dividing its core advertising business from its more experimental endeavors by restructuring into the holding company Alphabet, was “transparency.” Specifically, in the words of Alphabet CEO Larry Page, “improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.” What that means, however, is anyone’s guess. We asked […]
AOL Platforms moved five video formats out of beta on Thursday, an update to the pre-roll format that dominates video advertising. The interactive video ads will run across AOL properties such as The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and AOL.com, and publisher partner video content, via AOL’s video content service, AOL On. The ads are available programmatically […]
In the wake of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s fighting words about data collection and a major study finding consumer sentiment toward online tracking is at an exasperated tipping point, it seems clear that privacy is having another “moment.” What’s an industry to do? Sources approached by AdExchanger sound a familiar chorus: Advertisers should increase operational […]
Havas unveiled a tool Monday designed to measure inventory quality holistically by assessing fraud, viewability, ad clutter and brand context. The tool, called a meta-quality barometer, provides a quality score for publishers or inventory providers. “We need to help media vendors and tech partners to better guarantee the quality of the inventory,” said Dominique Delport, global […]
If you happen to have $4.5 million burning a hole in your pocket, congratulations! You can afford a 30-second Super Bowl TV spot. Of course, for most big game advertisers it’s not enough to have 30 seconds of spectacular creative – you also have to support it via online and social channels. “Social is huge […]
Yannick Bolloré, the newly appointed chairman and CEO of Havas, took to the Times Center stage Wednesday at Advertising Week to talk about changes at the French agency holding company in the wake of last year’s restructuring. Bolloré, a family-owned investment group steered by Yannick’s father and famed French investor Vincent Bolloré, owns a 37% […]
The strategic deal struck Monday between AOL Platforms and French agency Havas’ programmatic trading desk Affiperf benefits both parties: AOL Platforms gets sell-in with Havas’ clients and Havas can unify media assets for marketers in a central hub – ONE By AOL. This is AOL’s second major agency deal since March, when it debuted ONE […]
Demand-side platform (DSP) DataXu has recruited Ed Montes, CEO of programmatic trader Digilant, to lead its sales and marketing operations as chief revenue officer. Montes helped found Digilant in 2009, back when it was still called Adnetik and operated as the trading desk unit of French agency conglomerate Havas. Later, when Adnetik was spun off […]
Companies can spend millions on ads, SEO, search, content marketing, social and so on, but never maximize those dollars because they lack a good way of stringing together data about the interactions that result from that investment. With no singular picture into each customer’s cross-channel journey, brands don’t have the power to make real-time business […]
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 […]
The growing demand for personalized, “real-time marketing” (think: the doings of Oreo and its digital agency 360i that resulted in “Dunk in the Dark” during the Super Bowl), is one of the forces underpinning the push toward unifying the “human” and “technological” elements of the programmatic equation. AOL’s earlier announcement of a new strategic partnership […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Havas Partners With SEM Platform Havas Digital announced that it had selected KENSHOO as “their primary technology provider and partner for search engine marketing.” Actually… the partnership seems broader than that as KENSHOO’s platform will “consolidate search, social and mobile campaign management and optimization,” […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. DSP Revenues Power Higher It’s happened again! Another private ad tech company is reporting its financial progress – this time it’s demand-side platform [x+1]. The company said in a release, “Fourth quarter revenue increased 62 percent over the same period in 2008, while revenue […]
