WPP Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell takes an increasingly broad view of his competitors. In addition to the company’s two largest agency holding company rivals, Interpublic and Publicis/Omnicom (the future Publicis Omnicom Group), and smaller players Havas Media and Dentsu/Aegis, he says the company now competes broadly with Internet giants, researchers and data firms. “We […]
Publicis Groupe is hemorrhaging senior digital talent. With his exit for a plum job as CEO of AOL Networks (AdExchanger story), Razorfish CEO Bob Lord became the latest in a string of digital agency CEOs to leave the French holding company. Among the others are Colin Kinsella, former CEO of Digitas North America, who recently […]
For the past few years, the analytics spotlight has been captured by Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and comScore’s Validated Campaign Essentials (VCE). WPP’s Kantar analytics group has tended to play a minor role in the wars over whether TV-centric metrics like gross ratings points can be relevant for digital media buys. But with today’s […]
WPP Group’s trading desk Xaxis is known for its proprietary approach to technology. The GroupM unit has incubated numerous ad platforms, a legacy of WPP’s 2007 acquisition of 24/7 Media. It offers these products to clients as an alternative to licensing from vendors. By contrast, trading desk rivals VivaKi AOD (Publicis), Cadreon (IPG), and Accuen (Omnicom) are […]
Last week, Ford Motors kicked off its latest long-term ad campaign, dubbed “And Not Or,” with a theme that could also apply to its digital strategy. The spots, which began running on TV and have heavy online video components, touch on concepts that people expect to naturally go together; consumers are asked to choose between […]
WPP Group has taken a 20% stake in Globant, a fast growing Latin American marketing and software development firm. Buenos Aires-based Globant blends engineering and design-driven driven approaches. It employs 2,700 in six countries — including Brazil, Argentina, and Columbia — and offers its clients software development, data architecture, e-commerce applications, design, and mobile development […]
As a WPP Group agency, MediaCom works closely with the holding company’s Xaxis trading desk to execute data-driven media strategies. In such relationships between agencies and trading desks, it can be hard for a client to know where the desk stops and the operating agency begins. That creates a tricky problem, since first party data […]
E-commerce has become much more mainstream in the last two years. And yet, no one company, except for Amazon or perhaps Apple, appears to be notably dominant. Earlier this week, WPP’s GroupM Next released a survey of 1,000 users that showed 45 percent of customers shopping in-store at brick and mortar locations will walk out […]
Yesterday, Microsoft Advertising and WPP Group‘s 24/7 Media announced a new deal, which “consists of four main components that will help strengthen advertising technology stacks and expand opportunities for the marketer and publisher clients of both WPP and Microsoft Advertising,” according to a release. Read more about the components. AdExchanger discussed the deal with Dave […]
Brian Lesser is CEO of Xaxis, a digital partner of GroupM agencies, and WPP Group company. To learn more, visit the new company website here. Lesser, previously GM of WPP’s Media Innovation Group, discussed Xaxis and its implications. AdExchanger.com: What is Xaxis? And how will it differentiate itself within the marketplace? BL: Xaxis is a […]
