Category: Data-Labor-Technology Stories

When consultant Matt Ryan emerged from last month’s meeting with the CEOs of Omnicom and IPG, one thought stuck with him. Between their fanfare over the proposed union and the swift clap backs from rivals, it’s clear the holding company era is finished. The future belongs to operating companies, where agencies function as a cohesive whole rather than a collection of loosely connected firms.

“I came away from it [the meeting] thinking they’re really pitching this new company as a unified one — they’re really going to operate it like, like, one big company as opposed to lots of smaller ones,” said Ryan, founder of advertising consulting firm Roth Ryan Hayes.

If all this sounds familiar it’s because agency CEOs have been preaching the gospel of operating models for years. Some have inched closer to the ideal, but none have quite nailed the landing — yet. That’s why all eyes are on Omnicom’s planned acquisition of IPG. Should it all go through, it’ll be another test of whether agency leaders can finally break free from the holding company playbook — or just rewrite it.

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Bit by bit, more advertisers are beginning to use contextual targeting approaches for their programmatic media investments.

Signal loss from the gradual decline of the third-party cookie, rising esteem for contextual targeting firms’ AI capabilities, and the recent Adalytics investigation into ad tech’s role in monetizing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), have each given marketers reason to pause and question their current programmatic setups.

As such, contextual targeting providers have been twisting, turning and tuning their pitches to the market — ensuring they’re considered among the solutions to those challenges.

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It’s hard to ignore the sweeping changes to corporate and federal diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as brands like Target, Walmart and now Paramount, for example, continue to retool or walk back their DEI policies. Hyundai, meanwhile, says its multicultural marketing efforts and budget commitments will remain in place. 

Erik Thomas, director of experiential and multicultural marketing at Hyundai Motor America, told Digiday that multicultural audiences represent an estimated 30% of the automotive brand sales. (Thomas did not disclose exact revenue figures.) According to Hyundai’s 2024 annual and Q4 business results, the automotive brand’s global annual revenue increased 7.7% to 175.2 trillion South Korean Won (or slightly over $120 billion U.S. dollars). Meaning, there’s a business imperative behind Hyundai’s multicultural strategy – it continue to drive car sales, something DEI and cultural marketing experts have pointed to in the argument against DEI’s dismantling.

Last month, Hyundai put out its latest multicultural marketing campaign, “Play for the Car,” aimed at Black shoppers with paid media across diverse media, including entertainment channels like BET, TV One and Bounce, and publications like Blavity and Ebony Magazine. The campaign, from creative shop Culture Brands, will also have spots in NBA games this year. Culture Brands is the independent, minority and female-owned agency Hyundai selected as its African American marketing agency of record back in 2021. Since 2022, the automotive company has partnered with Lopez Negrete Communications as its Hispanic marketing agency of record.

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The race for the Best Picture statue wasn’t the only dramatic narrative playing out on Oscar night. Throughout the evening, viewers have been treated to a four-part mini-movie courtesy of first-time sponsor Prudential. The custom campaign was orchestrated for the financial giant by Disney’s in-house creative studio, Disney Creative. (The Mouse House owns ABC and…

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