The part of the advertising ecosystem that’s weathering the most disruption right now is ad agency holding companies.
AI is unleashing massive change at the agencies, from layoffs to new AI tools to new workflows and threats to cost-per-hour payment models. And the pecking order of holding companies is changing, with Publicis on the rise and Omnicom and IPG merging.
On this week’s podcast, we cover last week’s holding company earnings – Omnicom, IPG and Publicis – and we discuss how each company is talking about its future. Some surprises include not much talk about tariffs and more optimism than expected. Unsurprisingly, there was plenty of surface-level hype about AI.
The companies each cited media as a strong spot in their business. And it seems like business models that bake costs into the media, like principal-based buying, are a source of that strength. But after years of outcry about agencies being nontransparent about their media-buying practices, it feels like there’s been a change. If brands want to opt into nontransparent media – because their procurement teams prefer to see more spent on media, for example – are we entering a new era of transparent nontransparency?
