Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Deadlines, Give Or Take Google Chrome has updated the timeline for its Privacy Sandbox proposals, its developer test kit for identity and measurement products meant to replace the purposes served by third-party cookies. The deadlines are quarterly benchmarks, not set dates à la GDPR. […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Grace (Period) Under Fire Everyone knows that fingerprinting on iOS 14 is about as kosher as a strip of bacon on a piece of gefilte fish … right? Although Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework explicitly prohibits the use of fingerprinting, some of the largest mobile measurement […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Jedi Mind Trick? More details are coming out about Google and Facebook’s alleged sweetheart deal to rig Google’s ad auction. The tech giants agreed to “cooperate and assist one another” if they ever faced an investigation into their pact, according to an unredacted version […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. On The Clock Microsoft’s acquisition offer for TikTok has expanded to the app’s entire global business outside of China, including its operations in India and Europe, Financial Times reported. Previously, the takeover bid just covered TikTok’s business in the United States, Canada, Australia and […]
The holding company MDC Partners was already struggling before COVID-19 decimated the US economy. But a proposed merger by Stagwell Group, first reported by AdAge late Thursday, demonstrates how the pandemic likely accelerated the end of MDC’s run as an independent public company. MDC Partners and Stagwell Group did not respond to requests for […]
MDC Partners is the latest holding company to place its programmatic, search and social talent into a team that spans across its media network, MDC Media Partners. The group, which doesn’t have a name, was announced internally on Thursday and contains roughly 100 experts across biddable media and digital planning from agencies Assembly, Unique Influence […]
Agency holding companies have spent $12 billion on data assets over the past five years but have yet to successfully deploy those assets at their creative agencies, according to a Forrester report released Monday. “It’s still very much a media proposition,” said Jay Pattisall, Forrester analyst and author of the report. “[Creative] seems to be […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Illegitimate Interest? European regulators are circling real-time bidding companies, claiming the online ad framework violates GDPR by passing sensitive information through bid requests without explicit consent. Regulators in the United Kingdom and Ireland are investigating RTB, and Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and Poland have […]
Embattled holding company MDC Partners has a new owner. The Stagwell Group, a new-model agency holding company helmed by former Microsoft chief strategy officer and political advisor Mark Penn, said Friday it will invest $100 million to take a 30% minority stake in MDC Partners. Penn will become CEO and sit on MDC’s board. The […]
Cold Shower For Market Power Big tech, are your ears burning? On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission held the second in an ongoing series of hearings digging into competition and consumer protection issues. The FTC is trying to update its enforcement and policy agenda in the face of fast-paced technological change. “Technology is no longer […]
MDC CEO and Chairman Scott Kauffman will step down from the holding company. Kauffman will remain CEO and retain his board seat until the company finds a replacement, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news Wednesday. But MDC has been in decline for a while. It lost half its stock value […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hey, Big Spender Amazon may be raking in billions from its ad business, but it’s also spending a ton on programmatic advertising. The ecommerce giant was the biggest programmatic spender during the first quarter of this year, according to a report from MediaRadar. Amazon […]
MDC Partners CEO Scott Kauffman runs his agency network a bit differently than his peers. While the agency founders’ culture has come under fire recently by some, Kauffman, who has been CEO at MDC since 2015, actively facilitates it. MDC takes a majority stake in agencies and lets its entrepreneurs drive their own growth rather […]
Varick Media Management said Wednesday that former Xaxis executive Paul Dolan will join the company as its first-ever CEO. Varick, launched in 2008 as one of the first agency trading desks, has always had a president reporting into to senior leadership at parent company MDC Partners. Now with its first CEO, Varick is establishing a […]
GroupM Chairman Irwin Gotlieb has always had an intuitive eye for technology. He’s been applying it to the CES show floor since the 1970s, when it was called the Comdex computer expo show and disc drives sold for $400,000. Gotlieb began offering his knowledge to clients, vendors and other partners on his legendary floor […]
Ad buyers decry the absence of addressability in OTT inventory, which they claim lacks the targeting and measurement capabilities to which digital buyers are accustomed. But an integration between Videology’s cross-screen video platform and Tru Optik’s CTV device graph, revealed Wednesday, aims to bring more addressability to OTT advertisers – at scale. Previously, Videology would target […]
MDC Partners’ media agency, Assembly, has forged a strategic deal with Fox’s true[X], whose products give consumers options in their video ad breaks. The deal also gives true[X] more access to Assembly’s brand roster, like Hotels.com. Assembly and true[X] extended their partnership after collaborating on engagement-based ads for clients like the anti-tobacco nonprofit Truth. While […]
MDC Partners’ trading desk Varick Media has witnessed an exodus of numerous senior executives on the road to a new organizational hierarchy, first laid out in 2014. Many have recently left the trading desk – or transferred to sister agencies – as the holding company centralized Varick’s operations (and moves to offices housing the agency Assembly by the […]
Varick Media Management, agency holding group MDC Partners’ audience and media-buying arm, has released Alveo – a planning, buying and reporting platform. Operating originally as more of an internal trading desk, Alveo can now be used by Varick’s clients to manage and visualize data as well as access reports across multiple campaigns. Alveo is available […]
The health care system is evolving due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is why MDC Partners introduced a dedicated agency catering to the vertical: Antidote 360. “Health care is moving from a medicinal mindset to a lifestyle mindset,” said Antidote 360 co-founder Jennifer Deutsch, who is also the EVP and general manager of MDC agency […]
Mobile is big and video is big – and putting the two together presents a gargantuan advertising opportunity that Verizon will be primed to capture if it closes on AOL. “Verizon has been trying to figure out how to grab a bigger share of the ad tech pie, so the move makes sense strategically on […]
Although programmatic TV executions are far from “real-time,” agencies and some of the digital DSPs have made headway as suppliers open up greater access to inventory (at least on the local-market level). MDC Partners’ Varick Media Management is one of them. The company claims it buys programmatically now across seven different channels, including TV. One […]
MDC Partners had a record-high number of client wins in 2014, includeing Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream and InBev’s Corona in Brazil. As a result, its Q4 revenue increased 17.5% YoY (from $289.2 million to $339.9 million). Organic revenue also increased $12.5%, with new business wins totaling $56.7 million. FY 2014 revenue increased […]
Tech and media agency Assembly, which originated last March when MDC Partners combined multiple agency assets into a single unit, has added digital video into its Dynamic Creative Versioning tool mix. “We’ve developed a technology that allows us, in real time, to test, learn and reapply content,” said Martin Cass, CEO of Assembly and former […]
With the Omnicom-Publicis merger now in some doubt, WPP Group retains a glimmer of hope that it could remain the world’s largest agency holding company past the third quarter. In its Q1 earnings report Friday, WPP listed media investment – represented by its GroupM network and the Xaxis ad tech unit – as among its […]
Agency holding company MDC Partners has rebranded its Maxxcom Global Media unit as MDC Media Partners. It has also rolled two prior agency acquisitions, TargetCast and RJ Palmer, into a new, 250-person-strong media agency called Assembly, which will function as a unit within MDC Media Partners. Assembly combines resources from independent media communications agency TargetCast […]
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 […]
Data-driven buying methods have boosted media margins at MDC Partners, although programmatic is still small as a percentage of the whole business. On the holding company’s earnings call yesterday, CEO Miles Nadal said digital media stands out in its portfolio of marketing services firms with margins surpassing 20%. “Strategically, our media investments especially digital media […]
Paul Rostkowski is President at Varick Media Management, an agency trading desk and part of agency holding company MDC Partners. As part of AdExchanger’s “State of” series, we spoke to Rostkowski last week about the state of Varick Media and industry trends. Click below or scroll for more: Differentiating Varick’s Trading Desk On Today’s Data Markets Media […]
AdExchanger.com recently asked several members of the advertising ecosystem about “Middlemen” and, specifically: “Are there too many parties trying to insert themselves into the online advertising value chain? How do you see this playing out?” The following contribution is an agency perspective from MDC Partners’ Darren Herman, founder Varick Media Management & Chief Digital Media […]
