Media agencies are the No. 1 partner that brands are reviewing as COVID-19 rocks their marketing plans. Sixty-three percent of brands are reevaluating their media agencies, according to AdExchanger’s 2020 industry outlook report. That’s compared to 56% of respondents reassessing their data partners, 44% looking at new measurement partners and just 19% reexamining their relationships […]
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 […]
The US agency sector will lay off about 52,000 jobs over the next two years as media spend declines 23%, Forrester predicts. Agencies are projected to cut 35,167 jobs in 2020 and 16,578 in 2021. The global picture is even starker, with the big six agency holding companies poised to eliminate an additional 49,695 […]
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 […]
The remote work experiment caused by COVID-19 will transform agencies. Automation will become even more integral to agency workflows as consumer media habits shift, changing the nature of talent and services. Highly office-driven cultures will shift to a more remote, distributed workforce, as companies reduce their real estate holdings to drive efficiencies during the economic […]
The departure of long-time television investment executives at two of the world’s largest media agency groups, Omnicom Media Group and GroupM, underscores the changing television marketplace, accelerated by the pandemic. At GroupM, changes to the investment team began in 2016, when longtime chief investment officer Rino Scanzoni left. He was replaced by another investment vet, […]
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 […]
The agency holding companies all face the same external struggles – new competition, slowing growth and the need for new skills. But they’re taking different paths to confront these challenges. Traditionally, holding companies followed the same playbook: growth by acquisition to amass the scale that gave them clout across major clients. But the shift to […]
In its first-ever Wave evaluating media agencies with under $20 billion in billings, released Thursday, Forrester recognized agencies that leverage their buying clout and understanding of the media landscape in creative ways. Mediahub, Hearts & Science and Assembly were Leaders in the ranking. PHD, Spark Foundry, Horizon Media and Vizeum were Strong Performers, while Dentsu […]
Media agencies once used their buying power to compete with each other. But as clients transform their marketing processes for a digital world, clout doesn’t have the cache it once did, according to Forrester’s first Global Media Agency Wave Q3 2018, which was released Monday. “In a programmatic environment, buying clout becomes less important,” said […]
