Data-Labor-Technology

—Meta is also facing similar antitrust claims in the U.K. following the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s dismissal of Meta’s appeal to move forward with the acquisition of Giphy on Tuesday. The tribunal dismissed all but one of Meta’s six appeals, citing that the deal would give an unfair advantage over the digital advertising space. As a result, meta has been unable to move forward with the acquisition since the initial agreement in May 2020 for reportedly $400 million. 

—Potential Twitter acquirer Elon Musk held an hour-long meeting with Twitter employees last Thursday to answer questions regarding the transaction, moderated by Twitter’s CMO, Leslie Berland. Musk told Twitter employees in the all-hands video call, with all 8,000 employees invited, that his aim for the company is to have 1 billion users under his leadership. He also praised TikTok for keeping users engaged on the app throughout the meeting. As of last week, Twitter stock is trading around $38, while Musk will pay $54.20 a share for the company. In addition, Musk will owe the company $1 billion if he backs out of the deal.

In other news…

•  Spotify acquired Sonatic, a tech company that produces AI voices. This acquisition marks Spotify’s continued effort to expand its content library of music and podcasts. 
• Tiktok has announced it will launch new parameters to limit the screen time of its users. This update is the first effort the platform has put forward to curtail its young audience’s attention to the app. Users 13-17 years old will get a notification when they have exceeded more than 100 minutes on the app in a single day. 
• Apple TV secures the rights to Major Soccer League in a ten-year deal starting in 2023 after its deal with ESPN expires. The games will be available on Apple TV through a subscription-based model with MLS. 
• VoxMedia and WGA East reached a new agreement this past week following 95% of union members threatening to strike. The union members voted to ratify the deal on Thursday, securing benefits and higher wages for editorial and video staffers.
• Online retail fashion platform Zalando acquires a significant stake in Highsnobiety, the media brand dedicated to lifestyle, fashion and culture. Highsnobiety will be a creative consultant to Zalando while retaining editorial independence from the company. This acquisition comes after Highsnobiety signed a deal with retail company Gebr Heinemann in May this past year with plans to open retail stores in the future.
• Redbox Entertainment, a video rental company, has seen an extreme rise in its stock price in the past couple of weeks. Some experts call it a “meme-stock,” similar to Game Stop in 2021. The increase in stock prices comes after the announcement that Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul Entertainment would acquire the company. 
• 6sense, a revenue intelligence platform, acquired advertising technology provider Granite Media. In partnership with 6sense, Granite Media will allow companies to better market to consumers with its advertising tools. 
• Marketing agency White64 acquired independent branding and digital studio Jake Group. This deal will expand White64’s digital marketing skills for its clients, and Jake Group’s staff will merge with the company.
• Publicis Media’s APX Content Ventures has announced the first recipients of its $25 million Inclusion Investment Fund, which is part of Publicis’ Once and For All financial commitment in which ten inclusive partners will receive funding for their projects.

Additionally, below is a list of industry leader hires and promotions

• WPP hired Michael Houston as president of U.S. business
  • He was formerly CEO at Grey Group

• 6sense hired Terese Lam as chief people officer
  • She was formerly the chief people officer at Wind River

• Starcom hires Robert Schwartz as new CMO
  • He was the former CMO at Carat

• Disney hired Dana Walden as chairman of general entertainment content
  • She was formerly the CEO of 21st Century Fox

“Rather than just talking about servicing our clients and understanding our clients’ business, what we’re really doing more about and talking more about now is how we can help them in their journey of transformation, and I think that has been the thing that I’ve really seen the language shift over the years,” said Philippa Brown, global CEO of PHD and a 15-year veteran of Omnicom.

Brown addressed the realities of dealing with scope creep from clients, citing the need to be straightforward and honest when having those discussions. “We need to be paid fairly … More and more clients today realize they’re asking a lot of us, and realize that we’re not a charity — that we do need to pay our people fairly and also have a return for our shareholders like they have to have a return for their shareholders.”

Brown has had to adjust to a new boss in Florian Adamski, who took over less than a year ago from Daryl Simm as global CEO of Omnicom Media Group. Flo, as he’s known in the company, “is very much in the detail .. and very much a roll-up-sleeves executive, which I appreciate,” said Brown. “He’s also incredibly future facing, which again is really important, and sets a very clear vision for us moving forward.”

The digital industry’s focus on performance marketing that comes so easily with a lot of newer innovations can be a dangerous path to go down if one overlooks the importance of brand, Brown explained.

“A couple of the watch-outs are that you move too far into performance marketing and you forget about the brand, the strength of the brand,” she said. “And that’s what you’ll see coming through in Cannes, I hope. The brand hasn’t gone anywhere — it still needs to have great ideas behind it, [and] it needs to capture the imagination of consumers and cut through. Sometimes I do worry that over the years we’ve gone too lower-funnel, performance, and we’ve forgotten about the brand.”

What does she hope to get out of Cannes Lions most of all? Connecting with people in-person again. “The number one thing for me is to see people,” Brown explained. “There are some clients who are going to be there that I’ve only seen ever on a screen because they started their jobs during the pandemic … so for me, that’s one of the most exciting parts of the festival.”

Check out our daily podcasts from Cannes with agency leaders and analysts this week.

Specifically, this agreement lets all Omnicom agencies execute cross-screen planning against Walmart audiences in the Omni marketing orchestration platform. Planners can identify the domains, apps and screens with the most effective reach and cost for Walmart audiences. Using the Omni ID, they are then able to push advertisers’ first-party data to the Walmart DSP where it combines with Walmart audiences.

Seth Dallaire, Walmart’s chief revenue officer, explained it’s the first partnership Walmart has cut with any holding company. “Omnicom has a whole group of customers and clients that I would consider to be not endemic to Walmart, where we have an opportunity to use the data signals that we have from consumers that shop at Walmart, to apply them to advertising and media investments” like Omnicom’s auto clients (including VW), said Dallaire. 

“The fact that we will have access to the Walmart, Trade Desk API will allow us to do custom bid optimization and supply path optimization,” added Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s chief activation officer. “We can take client first-party data, push it via the Omni ID into the Walmart DSP, then plan the right inventory paths to execute against. Having Walmart be a part of our planning capabilities gives a significant benefit to our CPG advertisers. And that is particularly powerful for the non-endemics because we can both use Walmart data, and then optimize towards other outcomes rather than in-store measurement.”

One side benefit to the deal, said Dallaire, is the ability to connect Walmart’s in-store TV network in its 4,700 stores into Omnicom’s programmatic OOH practice. “That’s an area of innovation for us, that could be potentially really interesting,” said Dallaire. “Omnicom has been leading the way in terms of that programmatic out-of-home space. So I see that as being a really interesting and fun area for us to collaborate.”

The Walmart partnership is part of an Omnicom-wide effort to ramp up and coordinate e-commerce efforts across the entire holding company — a much needed move since the successful execution of commerce requires all hands to know what the other hands are doing. It’s one reason Frank Kochenash was hired by the holding company back in March as CEO of e-commerce for the parent company. 

“Omnicom’s not alone in this interest in this collision of media and commerce,” said Jay Pattisall, vp and agency analyst at Forrester. “it’s a move that places them at yet another competitive position with their peers.”

Omnicom will be making other strategic announcements with other retail media platforms and partners through this week, which Digiday plans to cover. 

IPG’s Mediahub has quietly undergone an internal examination resulting from a presentation it has put together for clients about the dramatically altered media world it’s operating in. Havas, meanwhile, assembled a report that it presented at ProcureCon in Europe last week that addresses how agencies and clients need to change their relationship with each other.

First, Mediahub’s existential presentation, which Digiday has seen but which has been kept under wraps outside of the two dozen clients that have been shown it, addresses all manner of change: gaming and Web3, e-commerce, the surge in content creation, influencers/creators, AI, cultural shifts, diversity awareness, etc.  

Mediahub CEO Sean Corcoran admitted the presentation, “A New Era in Media,” needs to be updated constantly due to the rapidity and fluidity of the media marketplace. But as it morphed, he said, there was a need to look inward to see how Mediahub must adapt as well. 

“Coming out of the pandemic, our feeling was, you know, everyone’s using QR codes, streaming is winning and gaming is huge. Jumping ahead to Web3, we’re totally on board with that, and it just felt like we could finally close the book on traditional mass media and say we’re in this new era,” said Corcoran. “But can I rely on that to drive business for my clients? We got existential, thinking what’s our job in the future? What is our job as a paid media agency? What are we built towards? ”

Corcoran used a quote from corporate sibling IPG Media Lab as a rallying cry of sorts: ““The end of the pandemic will mark the beginning of what comes next, where we must reinvent the pieces of society that have been stubbornly clinging to the past, while balancing the needs of those who can’t or won’t be ready for that new world.”

Mediahub’s conclusions look more outward than inward but offer a clue to how the media agency will adapt: 

• Data needs to be front and center of pretty much anything any agency does, media or creative, particularly when it comes to measurement. And in order to do so, AI and machine learning need to be applied to determine the best insights to inform creative, planning, strategy and execution
• The metaverse and Web3 will play a huge role in the future — but several years from now
• The walled gardens as they exist now will largely be torn down in the next five years due to consumer backlash against them
• TV content, not necessarily TV distribution, will be revitalized, leading to that content getting more expensive for advertisers
• Creative will make a comeback, powered by more data fueling it, but it won’t resemble the creative agency of today — it will look more like a studio
• Mediahub needs to do more work to figure out how to reach people when they’re receptive, since consumers spend much more time unavailable than ever before.   

“These are just some of the ideas we’ve thrown at the wall,” said Corcoran. “The world has changed. We think it’s time to embrace that change, and to think about how to leverage this new landscape to grow your business, even though it’s very challenging and complex.”

Havas Group, meanwhile, examined its own need to change through the lens of procurement — an unfortunately necessary evil in the minds of most agencies. The resulting study, “The Client – Agency Relationship Barometer,” is part of Havas’ annual Meaningful Brands study. 

The study calls for, among other things, agencies to create forums for new experts and talent to come to the table (for example, in the areas of sustainability and brand purpose) and to tie everything back to the delivery of tangible value and actual return on investment

One of the biggest expectation gaps was in the area of innovation — three fourths of respondents thought it was important that their agency innovates for the right reasons, but less than half were satisfied that their agency’s innovation efforts were rooted in actual business needs. 

“The takeaway from this data is one of the key pillars we believe is essential to building a meaningful, long-lasting client relationship: Tie everything back to sustainable business growth and ROI,” said Erin Flaxman, global chief growth officer, Havas Media Group

Marc Guldimann, CEO of attention metrics firm Adelaide, works with both Mediahub and Havas Media Group, said he believes both media agencies are putting in the hard work to understand where they need to go. 

“They’re both leaning into evidence- and data-driven approaches, but they’re both embracing the idea of using the scientific method, and bring as much data into the decision as possible,” said Guldimann. “There’s plenty of historical examples of people in other industries, who have not embraced evidence-based approaches, and history hasn’t been kind to them.”

Color by numbers

The drumbeats around the metaverse got a lot louder last week when McKinsey & Co. issued its latest report, “Value Creation in the Metaverse,” which predicted that by 2030, the metaverse will grow to $5 trillion in total value. McKinsey broke down its elements with e-commerce representing the largest block of value ($2.6 trillion), ahead of virtual learning ($270 billion), advertising ($206 billion) and gaming ($125 billion). 

Takeoff & landing

• IPG-owned UM, which just landed media AOR duties for Upwork, a work solutions marketplace, is involved in testing a solution to better safeguard podcasting and digital audio that’s being created by Spotify and Integral Ad Solutions. 
• Nationwide insurance tapped GroupM’s Essence (which becomes EssenceMediacom next year) as its media agency of record, replacing UM (which still keeps some SEO and paid search work). Nationwide already works with Essence’s corporate sibling Ogilvy on creative work.
• Publicis took an unusual step in its embrace of the metaverse, by naming an avatar named Leon to be its chief metaverse officer. The French holding company also launched CitrusAd, a self-serve on-site and off-site retail media platform backed by the data assets of Epsilon, matched with the assets of Publicis’ recent acquisition of Profitero.  

Direct quote

“Since the … rise of TikTok, brands have been searching for ways to create content that will break through and captivate the platform’s incredibly engaged and growing audience. BeReal gives us remarkable insight into what content wins these young consumers over. They want content that provides authentic, real and unfiltered glimpses into the lives of the people and brands they love. As marketers develop their content and influencer strategies on TikTok, they have a tremendous opportunity to separate themselves from their competitors by lifting the veil and giving their audiences the content they desire.”

—Jamie Gilpin, CMO of Sprout Social, on the rise of BeReal, a new social platform that captures the same moment in time of its users each day.

Speed reading

• Digiday’s senior media editor Tim Peterson, in his latest Future of TV Briefing, looks at the next stage of the TV upfront, which determines exactly how many billions of dollars will be committed to linear and streaming TV this year. 
• If you haven’t already read Digiday senior news editor Seb Joseph’s excellent Cannes walkup stories, here’s your chance. And senior tech reporter Ronan Shields previews how Amazon and Apple plan to make their presence felt along the Croisette this year. 
• And with Juneteenth being celebrated by more and more companies in the U.S., Digiday marketing reporter Julian Cannon examines how much farther this industry needs to go in actually achieving demonstrable results.
• Finally, I got an early peek at a new study on CMOs from agency Boathouse, which looked at CMO performance through the lens of the CEO. 

“2022 will likely have two vibes happening,” Leslie Sims, U.S. chief creative officer at Deloitte Digital, told Digiday, “celebration since it is the first time back in-person in two years, and yet also a more reserved tone given the complicated issues the world is facing.”

As per usual, the biggest names in marketing, media and advertising will be present. Festival goers can expect sessions with WPP CEO Mark Read, and The New York Times CMO David Rubin. (Find the festival program here.) Albeit, that presence may be scaled back some, given the war in Ukraine, pending economic recession and spiking Covid-19 cases. The festival is looking to return to celebrate while also recognizing the state of the world, per Cannes CEO Simon Cook. The Captify Pool Party won’t be back in full this year and it may be a few more years until festival goers see another ferris wheel. 

Call it a sign of the times. “There are better ways to spend €40,000 this year than on a round table sold by a trade publication,” a marketing director for an ad tech vendor told Digiday.

That’s not to say the dollars (or the rosé) have completely dried up. Companies that have the money have planned some pretty big initiatives, reminiscent of pre-pandemic Cannes. Adjacent from the Palais, PwC, Smartly.io and iHeartMedia will have yachts lined up on the water. Along the beach, expect star-studded talent at night as Spotify too has returned with its signature concerts. This year, acts feature big name talent like Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone. 

The creative festival will also see some newcomers and new experiences. Amazon will finally have a beach presence à la Amazon Port with two days worth of programming. Meanwhile Roku and Adform will host spots on Cabana row. TikTok too will have its own Creator Cabana, fresh off the heels of partnering with the Cannes Film Festival last month. And Apple will be there too, but they’re mysteriously not saying where.

This year, there seems to be a focus on the burgeoning creator economy. Especially as TikTok has been gobbling up user attention (and thus, ad dollars), proving itself a viable contender to social media titans like Facebook and Instagram. 

In addition to its Creator Cabana, the short-form video app has four days worth of creator-focused programming alongside TikTok creators available to help with content creation in real time. Not to be outdone, Meta beach boasts Reels SuperStudio, where users can create their own Reel, and programming around the metaverse. Pinterest too will be back at the beach with new product launches, its own creator workshops and more.

While the festival may look different than it has in years past, much of the advice for navigating it remains the same: Drink plenty of water, avoid overbooking and wear comfortable shoes. 

Digiday spoke with Cannes veterans to get a sense of what a return to Cannes will look like this year.

As James Leaver, CEO at Multilocal, a digital marketing company, advised “Find yourself some shade and recharge. Remember: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” — Kimeko McCoy

3 Questions With Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar

Mastercard has been increasingly focused on audio and is releasing an album with Spotify this week at Cannes. Tell us why.

We came to the conclusion that there is an opportunity for us to launch an album, but not just for the sake of an album, but it’s a collection of songs that incorporate Mastercard’s melody very distinctly but also very differently and uniquely for those songs. It’s also a platform for up and coming artists to have their own interpretation of the Mastercard melody.

When it comes to the effectiveness of sonic branding versus visual branding, how do you measure it and what works better?

What we have to recognize is most of us can remember some jingles even from childhood. I remember them from 40 or 50 years back. That’s the power of sound, that’s the power of music. But jingles were deployed so long back that they’re relatively uni-dimensional if you look at the whole scope of possibilities for sound in a brand or for marketing. The key thing is if you understand the impact of sound and its components on people’s feelings and moments, you can create a strong identity for your brand.

As for as ROI is concerned, at this point in time I would say that using the right kind of sound and sonic architecture is very critical and if you scale it right, the ROI is much, much better than the other areas that are totally cluttered like visual ads. So therefore your cut through will be much better and your brand recognition will be much better and the impact of what you’re trying to do is much more effective.

There has been increased discussion around how the economic downturn will change advertising spending. In your role at Mastercard but also as president of the World Federation of Advertisers, how are you seeing that outlook right now?

The effects of the pandemic is sort of wearing off and things are coming right back up with consumer spending up across all the categories. Travel has been coming up. And there’s been a significant pickup in business and therefore significant pickup as well in marketing dollars and consequently advertising.

Now we have two big challenges right now with the Russia and Ukraine situation. Then you’ve got the impending inflation that we seem to be about to witness, etc. These are going to be temperedness to demand where people will be adjusting their spend, readjusting the items they actually spend on, how they reallocate and so on. Will it have an impact? Absolutely. In what exact form and extent is yet to be seen. But I’d say so far the full effects of inflation have not yet kicked in and even given the situation with Russia and Ukraine and the pandemic, we are sort of out of the woods to a large extent. So in terms of marketing investment overall, I don’t think it’s slowed down. — Marty Swant

What To Do Today

• 10:30-11:15 – Cannes Lions and Deloitte – CMOs in the Spotlight
• 12:00-1:00 – Meet Up – First Time and Solo Attendees Welcome
• 12:15-12:45 – Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit – The Future of TV Advertising, Measurement and a Multi-Currency World Has Arrived
• 1:00-2:00  – Twitch – Amazon Visual Storytelling Workshop
• 3:00-3:45 – T-Mobile Panel – Amazing and true tales from the app economy

What to expect

• The Festival will look different this year, in light of not only changing times in a Covid world but in a time of economic downturn globally. Many events will take place along the beach rather than in hotel suites, and many past festival attendees expect this year to be more low-key than the last in-person gathering in 2019.
• Global Growth Councils for Progress are at the center of the programming this year, with six teams of industry members, each focusing on the following: Sustainability, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Data and Technology, Talent, and Brand Creative Effectiveness, and Business Information.
• Many brands are hosting introductory happy hours on Monday throughout the Festival beginning at 1 pm.
• Cannes Lions has added a new B2B Award, Creative B2B Lions, for the first time this year, which will have the jury award 11 winners for their product creativity and brand growth strategies. — Carly Weihe

What We’ve Covered

• Big Tech will court adland during Cannes’ comeback week with Apple and Amazon upping the ante
• Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook on creative trends and returning to the Croisette
• The Sober Guide to Cannes 2022