Agencies

On Omnicom Group’s Q3 earnings call last week, CEO John Wren waxed poetic for a few minutes about the holding company’s investment in data, calling out a new director of applied data position at agency RAPP. Loren Grossman, the guy filling out that role, is charged with “deriving actions” from data platforms including DMPs, CRM systems […]

Deloitte Digital’s acquisition today of Seattle-based digital social media marketing agency Banyan Branch is a strong indicator that the management consultancy is vying for more agency share. Banyan’s 50-person team, which is broken down into social analytics/insights, engineering and design — as well as audience marketing talent, which Banyan defines as advocate/influencer activation and social […]

The lawyers may be scurrying and the deal fees mounting, but Omnicom and Publicis are still on track to complete their $35 billion megamerger by early 2014. The companies are making slow but steady progress on achieving regulatory approval for the deal, Omnicom CEO John Wren told investors on the company’s Q3 earnings call this morning. […]

Emmett Shine’s Bowery-based agency Gin Lane Media is not your everyday 25-person creative shop. The agency had early roots in women’s apparel; its founder and CEO began T-shirt company LOLA New York in 2005 while circumnavigating the downtown New York design and art scene. After securing a number of small projects that landed SeamlessWeb and […]

MAGNA GLOBAL Research has issued a new report this morning chock full of data that shows robust growth in programmatic buying of digital media. For starters, the company says that in the U.S. programmatic inventory (display, mobile, social, video) will hit $7.4 billion this year. Of that, $3.9 billion will be real-time biddable, which $3.5 […]

Essence has made another key hire from the Razorfish talent pool with its appointment of Christian Juhl as the digital agency’s CEO of North America. Juhl arrives from his former post as president, West, at Razorfish, where he managed four offices with a focus on integrated media, creative and technology lines of business. Essence, in […]

There’s a bright future for agencies in being effective purveyors of first-party data, said Brian Krick, the newest head of North American search and biddable for digital agency Essence. But, he said, they have to be willing to have tough conversations and break down barriers. Weaning channel-specific marketers off artificially inflated CPAs that don’t reflect true incremental revenue […]

Video demand side platform TubeMogul and IPG Mediabrands have expanded their work together in the UK, Australia and Japan as the two seek to build up their programmatic video operations in those countries. Their agreement also aims to deliver more seamless campaign tools to globally-minded US marketers. TubeMogul’s non-exclusive partnership with Mediabrands, which has largely […]

Notice how the cover-up of scandal is often worse than the original misdeed? The same is true when it comes to the appearance of a conflict of interest – if it looks like a conflict, you’ve got a conflict. That’s ultimately what led Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Laura Desmond to resign from the board of […]

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 […]