UM

IPG struggled in 2023 as tech clients slashed their ad spend and its digital agencies underperformed.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Win Is A Win? Blue-chip accounts are coveted on Madison Ave, but it’s impossible to tell which clients are really the key wins for the agencies involved.  Winning the McDonald’s or Coca-Cola account comes with cachet and solid earned media, but the […]

Under The Hood When Gary Numan sang, “Here in my car, I feel safest of all,” he didn’t know about the rapacious data collection practices of modern-day automakers. Ars Technica reports that, late last week, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent letters to 14 car companies, including Ford, GM, Honda and Hyundai, asking pointed questions about […]

“It’s an open secret that the industry has challenges, and not just the challenges people talk about publicly,” says Joshua Lowcock, who recently left IPG’s UM for a role at Quad Media.

There are certain privacy-related phrases companies use when they’re talking about their products that should make your antennae twitch. If you hear them, it’s a signal to ask questions.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. I Don’t Speak TikTok TikTok introduced search ad campaigns last year. But it’s a tough sell, especially considering TikTok’s organic traction. TikTok has a strong consumer pitch, which happens to be the focus of its new ad campaign, but advertisers are wary, Marketing […]

Content moderation policies sound good on paper. But policies are tested in practice. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is yet another example that content moderation will never be perfect. Then again, that’s not a reason to let perfect get in the way of good.

If the ongoing pandemic has demonstrated anything, it’s that pre-packaged pre-COVID consumer data no longer applies. “The world has completely changed and there are a lot of stale data sets out there,” said Dominic Joseph, CEO of search intelligence company Captify, which released a self-serve insights, planning and activation platform on Wednesday called Sense. Several […]

Brand safety is always top of mind for advertisers. But it’s become more important than ever as issues from coronavirus misinformation to the ongoing Facebook ad boycott dominate industry headlines. For Joshua Lowcock, chief digital officer at UM and global brand safety officer at IPG Mediabrands, the renewed focus is an opportunity for advertisers to […]

The past week has seen a reckoning begin over the content policies – or lack thereof – governing the big media platforms. Major marketers, including Coca-Cola, Unilever and Diageo, are halting spend on social media at least through July. But there’s always the danger than these efforts end up being an exercise in virtue signaling once they’re […]

“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 Joshua Lowcock, chief digital and global brand safety officer at UM Worldwide. Twitter’s decision to flag one of President Trump’s tweets with a fact-check has set a precedent for how social media […]

Not a news flash: Media agencies are under immense pressure. That was true long before the pandemic. But agencies have also made big investments in data and technology over the last few years that are starting to bear fruit. This week on The Big Story, special guest Jay Pattisall, a principal analyst at Forrester, calls […]

Forrester’s Media Agency Wave, released Tuesday, gave the highest ratings to the agencies that used data platforms to improve both media execution and ad creatives and created a more centralized, integrated experience for their clients. IPG media agency UM led the 10 media agencies evaluated for the report. To qualify, each agency needed $10 billion […]

“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 Joshua Lowcock, chief digital and global brand safety officer at UM Worldwide. The unprecedented public health challenge of the coronavirus is also uncovering the challenges facing the ad tech industry around […]

While Facebook’s earnings last Tuesday prove that marketers still spend, some wonder if consumer backlash against the platform could one day damage brands advertising on it. “The slow stream of press has caused more angst and questions,” said James Douglas, executive director and head of media at performance agency Reprise. “Every day it seems like […]

As clients tighten their belts and put accounts up for review, IPG media agency UM is focused on working strategically with data and analytics to grow clients’ businesses. That often means sitting out a major pitch if it’s clear the focus will be on cost cutting. “It goes against how agencies have been trained, which […]

“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 Joshua Lowcock, executive vice president and chief digital and innovation officer at UM Worldwide. The advertising industry often talks about trust – trust between advertisers and their agencies, trust between […]

In the words of Jon Stimmel, the chief investment officer for UM Worldwide, planning an over-the-top (OOT) ad campaign is “a Frankenstein of different methodologies mixed together.” He added, while speaking last week at the Videonuze Shift summit in New York, that buyers need more automation in the OTT planning process: “We are recreating the […]

McCann Worldgroup has always operated under an integrated agency model. The IPG-owned network, whose agencies include media agency UM, creative agency McCann, database marketing agency MRM McCann, brand experience agency Momentum Worldwide, McCann Health, PR agency Weber Shandwick, shopper marketing agency ChaseDesign and a handful of other production and design shops, was founded in the […]

Last week, IPG Mediabrands global CEO Henry Tajer announced he will leave the company and head back to Australia for personal reasons. But executive politics and challenges facing media agencies also factored into his departure. Tajer, a 10-year veteran of IPG Mediabrands, became global head in 2015 after a successful stint as CEO of Mediabrands […]

Accenture, which has crept steadily onto holding company turf in recent years, has tapped Universal McCann, part of IPG, as its global media agency of record. WPP’s MEC was the incumbent. UM will handle cross-channel media buying across all lines of business at Accenture, including its agency brand, Accenture Interactive. Programmatic buys for Accenture will […]

[pullquote][/pullquote]Coca-Cola’s global senior digital director has a refreshing point of view on the divide between creative and media: There is no divide. “Creative is media,” said Mariano Bosaz, whose job is to coordinate digital marketing efforts across markets and set the tone for Coke’s digital strategy. Thinking of creative and media in silos harks back […]

Interpublic Group’s global media arm, IPG Mediabrands, has hired Charles Godbold as global director of media intelligence systems. Godbold starts Oct. 1 and will report to IPG Mediabrands global CEO Henry Tajer. Godbold is the founder of Media Pilot Pty Ltd., a consultancy that developed media analytics, and media auditing firm Mediasenz Pty Ltd. In […]

“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 Thierry Cornet, partner portfolio manager at UM. The market is awash with mobile ad networks claiming to be specialists in geolocation and, more recently, device bridging. But pulling back the […]

While advertisers are eyeing the vast possibilities for location tracking, behavioral targeting and interest discovery associated with wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the intimate nature of such devices creates consumer privacy concerns. Despite the opportunity around wearables, it might behoove advertisers and agencies to temper their excitement a little. “Wearables will generally be […]

“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 Mitch Weinstein, Senior Vice President of Ad Operations at UM. In light of Mozilla’s announcement that it will block third-party cookies on an upcoming version of Firefox, the buzz […]