Agencies

It’s been a year since Publicis Groupe forced a big transition of its programmatic operation that many saw as the future of data-driven agency services: It decentralized its seven-year-old trading desk, VivaKi AOD, and reassigned its employees to new jobs within the holding company’s media agencies. Today, its grand experiment is seriously strained by a […]

Xaxis, WPP’s programmatic media company, is a bit of lightning rod in the advertising industry for a few well-documented reasons. However, it’s undeniable that the ad net/trading desk/tech shop combo invests a lot into its own data, partnerships and technologies. Consider, for instance, the $25 million it put into its proprietary data management platform Turbine […]

Merkle on Wednesday revealed its purchase of UK-based Comet Global Consulting, a provider of CRM and marketing solutions. It did not disclose terms. This acquisition marks the third and largest for Merkle within nine months, growing its European employee base to more than 500. The deal comes at the end of Merkle’s five-year global growth […]

The Association of National Advertisers and the 4As might be mending fences, but transparency – or the lack thereof – is still an issue. It’s why programmatic agency Anagram decided to start setting its clients up with their own direct platform contracts, rather than stepping in as the middleman. Anagram founder Adam Cahill calls it “radical […]

“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 Nick Illobre, director of enterprise media solutions at Merkle. As we think about the evolution of programmatic media buying, we can all reminisce about having to explain what “programmatic” was […]

Devices and hardware will come and go. “Which is why the future is absolutely about mobility,” said Lisa Donohue, CEO of Publicis Groupe’s Starcom. “Mobility and understanding a consumer’s movements, the decisions they make and why they make them.” It’s a philosophy Starcom applies to “new establishment” clients like Airbnb and to more “classic” brands […]

The Trade Desk has grown faster than probably any other DSP in recent years, as founder and CEO Jeff Green sought to capitalize on what he saw as strategic errors by rivals. “We saw that most of the DSPs had created channel conflicts for themselves,” said Green, a reference to some other DSPs’ media company […]

ComScore has struck a measurement deal with Twitter to enable a tagless integration to its digital audience delivery and analytics system, validated Campaign Essentials (vCE). The integration will take effect in Q2 and will give advertisers access to digital GRPs and reach and frequency metrics. These new reporting features will be available directly within Twitter’s […]

“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 Jay Friedman, COO at Goodway Group. After the Super Bowl, my family had this conversation: Wife to son: Did you watch the ads? Son: No. Wife: That’s half the fun. Son: […]

There’s an old ad industry saw that goes, “a little Procter & Gamble budget in everyone’s paycheck.” Well, now there’s a half billion less. The CPG giant told investors on the company’s earnings call in January that the company had succeeded in cutting $370 million in marketing costs in 2015, and that it expected to […]