Dive summary:
- According to Publicis and Omnicom's CEOs, the recent merger between the agencies was based on data; Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy both agreed to claims the merger would put them on par with Google and Facebook, who often cut out agencies by offering data directly to brands.
- It's a compelling argument on the surface, but many in the industry are questioning the reality; more likely, the data claim is meant to ward off anti-trust regulators by positioning the firm as a data entity rather than a collection of ad agencies.
- The biggest argument against Publicis and Omnicom's data claim is that their end customers still own the majority of the data.
From the article:
"Ari Paparo, an executive at Bazaarvoice who spent six years working at Google and DoubleClick, said that he was surprised to hear his former employer mentioned as a competitor to ad agencies. 'They’re Google’s biggest customers,' he said. 'Google has very good relationships with both companies, so it’s particularly odd that they would say that.'”