Publicis Groupe interrupted a few people’s Sundays last week with its $2.2bn acquisition of Liveramp, a neutral platform that allows brands to combine customer data with online data to power programmatic advertising and analytics. Predictably1, much of the commentary since has focused on whether Publicis’ rivals will still view the business as “Switzerland”2 once the deal has gone through.
Since its 2019 purchase of third-party specialist Epsilon, Publicis Groupe has done an excellent job of selling the benefits of using data to power marketing decisions to clients in the privacy of the pitch room. Now with Liveramp, as with Lotame last year, Publicis is upgrading its arsenal to meet the current (and subsequent) battlefield conditions.
But the deal got me wondering why, when so many holding companies' crosshairs are positioned on data-fuelled prey in the general, there are so few public proponents of the resulting hits in the particular. By which I mean: where are all the executives going over the top and leading the charge for such work?
It is understandable that clients who power media decisions with commercial data will be wary of sharing details too publicly, but it is difficult to find a settlement when only one side is taking part in the battle.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the newly established Media Planning Group and its push to revive comms planning. The industry has much to gain from reinforcing the ranks of clever humans, and yet we have to be realistic that much of their role involves operating the machines. I find it curious that holding companies keep emphasising the simplicity of their automated planning engines3, rather than the sophistication needed for their proper deployment. Aside from the fact that it devalues their employees' roles and might prompt brands to consider doing it themselves, I hear it’s not that straightforward.
When you consider the future of media agencies more broadly, the they-should-simply-be-agents-buying-media-line-by-line contingent is far noisier than the people who are, let’s face it, responsible for the biggest chunks of media spend in the UK. Not only that, but many of the people most keen to highlight holding companies’ conflict of interest when it comes to media buying are rather less forthcoming about how they financially benefit from doing so, whether that is through the auditing of said spend or running agency pitches.
We can see from Publicis Groupe’s new-business efforts in recent years, and WPP’s successes more recently, that many brands are buying into their data-fuelled pitch, whatever form that takes. Interpublic's Acxiom, once a sibling of Liveramp, is said to be a key draw of Omnicom's acquisition. International conglomerates with fierce procurement teams are endorsing innovation in this space, and I cannot believe they are blindly signing up to processes without the option of a parachute if they do not work for them. I would love to hear more about the details of the new products and achievements with them, beyond the generals' bland boasts.