Agencies

iSocket’s former CTO, Karl Bunch, will help focus Xaxis’ discipline around its demand-side products. Bunch, an ad tech vet who also worked at Time Warner Music, CPXi and AppNexus, started as Xaxis’ VP of global product development last week. The WPP-owned programmatic media company revealed the hire Tuesday. Bunch’s immediate prerogative is learning Xaxis’ business and […]

Creativity on mobile – or the lack thereof – was top of mind at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. “The notion that creativity hasn’t been cracked on mobile – I find that depressing,” said Lindsay Pattison, CEO of Maxus Worldwide, speaking at an IAB event sponsored by Facebook and NASDAQ during the big show. “Most clients […]

Digital measurement company comScore needed WPP’s investment in order to rival Nielsen in cross-platform ratings, according to one comScore partner. Although Nielsen dominates linear TV measurement, its push toward a “Total Audience” rating will improve its mobile Online Campaign Ratings tool, launched last summer. ComScore, in lockstep, rolled out a cross-platform tool in January to […]

Depending on how you frame it, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest are either disintermediating the influencer marketing ecosystem or “wrapping their arms more tightly around it,” as Lisa Weinstein, president of global digital, data and analytics at Starcom MediaVest Group, puts it. Circa 2011, brands threw money at social marketing agencies with one goal: “Go […]

IPG Mediabrands’ media investment arm, MAGNA Global, has added 15 long-tail and premium TV networks to its consortium mix. The long-term goal is to automate more than 50% of client buys. MAGNA Consortium’s original slate of partners included print, digital and TV publishers like Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, Tribune, AOL, Cablevision and A+E Networks. […]

The divide between publishers and advertisers around viewability sharpened during a Tuesday morning panel “Inside The Mind Of The Advertiser,” hosted by analytics provider Integral Ad Science. This wasn’t much of a surprise considering one panelist was Ari Bluman, GroupM’s chief digital investment officer for North America. GroupM has taken a notoriously hardline stance around […]

With the revamp of its partner program last week, Facebook is for the first time allowing agencies to pursue certification – under a specialization called Media Buying. (Don’t call it a badge.) The change is a tacit acknowledgement that Facebook’s key relationships in the ad ecosystem include not only the builders of tools for reaching […]

MDC Partners had a record-high number of client wins in 2014, includeing Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream and InBev’s Corona in Brazil. As a result, its Q4 revenue increased 17.5% YoY (from $289.2 million to $339.9 million). Organic revenue also increased $12.5%, with new business wins totaling $56.7 million. FY 2014 revenue increased […]

One hundred percent desktop ad viewability sounds like the simplest thing and an easy standard to meet. But advertisers still are in want, publishers wish they could provide it and this demand has generated frothy press releases from the ad tech community with “100% viewable” bolded in the header. The problem is that “100% viewable” […]

During Interpublic Group’s (IPG) Q4 and year-end earnings call on Friday, chief Michael Roth emphasized – as he did after Q3 – the holding company’s barter-based programmatic model that discloses margins. This isn’t the only difference from the black-box models of IPG’s competitors, which deploy programmatic on an agency-by-agency basis. “We continue to believe that […]