Omnicom Media Group has named Laura Fenton CEO of OMG UK.  In her new role, Fenton – who has been CEO of OMD UK since 2020 – will oversee strategy, operations and the development and adoption of transformative capabilities to support OMG UK agencies – including  OMD, PHD, Hearts & Science, and the Annalect data and analytics division in the UK.  

Fenton succeeds Dan Clays who was recently named  CEO of OMG EMEA. 

“As the CEO of OMD UK, Laura has driven growth across all key metrics, delivering close to $300m in net new billings, expanding the agency’s business transformation offer, and building a collaborative culture of opportunity,” said Clays. “Bringing the expertise and commitment that fuelled these achievements to her new role, she will ensure that all OMG UK agencies can access and activate the industry’s most future-forward capabilities to deliver accelerated growth for their clients and increased opportunities for their talent.” 

During her tenure as CEO, the agency added Compare the Market, British Gas, Open University and Noble Foods to its client roster, and retained the Channel 4 business following a review that saw every major holding company competing for the account.  Combining a robust business development record with expanded insights and analytics capabilities, a new full-funnel planning proposition, and a career development initiative designed to help mid-level talent accelerate their rise through the ranks, Fenton led OMD UK to a Media Week Agency of the Year title in 2022, and a place on the shortlist for the 2023 award that will be announced next month. Fenton herself is also a contender for Agency Leader of the Year.  

“My experience at OMD – first as Managing Director and then as CEO – has provided invaluable insight into what agencies need from the group, as well as the group’s primary mission in service to the agencies,” says Fenton. “Our agencies’ success is based on our ability to deliver on OMG’s Agency as a Platform offer – connecting media, content and commerce to create future forward solutions. My priority as the CEO of OMG UK will be ensuring that we continue to meet that mandate – faster and better than any other media group – to drive competitive advantage for our agencies, clients and people.” 

Omnicom Media Group (OMG) UK has today launched OMG Impact, an ESG accountability tool to help advertisers gain greater visibility of the societal and environmental impact of investment across the media supply chain. OMG Impact, powered by global ESG data specialist Legacy Media, allows OMG UK to measure media owners on environmental, social and governance practices. The group will use this to benchmark how media investment strategies align with clients’ ESG commitments.   

The UK Government is the first to use the new ESG tool, which will be available to other UK clients across the group in coming months.  The tool provides an ESG index for historical media investment (powered using Legacy Media data) with the ability to deep dive into scores around 12 ESG categories ranging from Energy and Climate Change, through Community and Development to Diversity and Labour Rights.  The data is refreshed monthly to ensure that media owner efforts in this area are recognised, and OMG will work with media partners to highlight the areas where they are behind their peers.  

OMG Impact was developed to help the UK Government and OMG UK’s private sector clients make responsible and better-informed media investment decisions based on the ESG credentials of media partners. The new tool complements the current focus on climate to also align reporting to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The UK Government will access OMG Impact – which will be integrated into the Omni open operating system that supports all Omnicom agencies – through its Omnicom Media Group buying agency OmniGov at MG OMD.  

The partnership between OMG UK and Legacy Media allows OMG clients to make ESG a reporting metric so that the wider impact of their media supply chain investment can be measured. Legacy Media will have access to OMG’s resources and in-house specialists to grow its dataset of rated media suppliers, utilising a methodology agreed by both parties. Notably, this will allow OMG to expand measurement to media specialising in underrepresented groups including minority owned media channels, small and medium enterprises. 

OMG will share its ESG data to any media owners that have been measured by Omnicom teams to support the work that is taking place across the industry.   

The UK Government is using a custom algorithm to report against social value, a variation on ESG.  The total average performance rating for the advertising industry is 56.4 out of 100.  Initial results from OMG Impact have shown that the UK Government has a higher ESG investment performance rating than the total advertising average.   

OMG Impact adds to OMG’s existing suite of ESG products and initiatives designed to help  brands commit to safer and more responsible practices, including its Carbon Calculator that helps planners quantify the carbon generated through each channel planning scenario; its Council for Accountability and Standards in  Advertising (CASA) which advocates for quality, safety and transparency in media investment; and the Diverse Creators Network, a curated marketplace designed to help brands discover and partner with Black, Hispanic, Women, AAPI, and LGBTQ+  creators who align with their objectives and KPIs.  

Bhavin Balvantrai, Chief Market Analyst at OMG UK, says: “OMG Impact offers a proactive solution to any client that wishes to invest in the media owners who align with their values and those of their audience. It’s the first of its kind in helping to bring accountability to an advertiser’s media supply chain, often one of the largest investment areas within a business, and it demonstrates our broader commitment to helping clients balance marketing efficacy with ESG values.  The launch of OMG Impact marks the first time Legacy Media has partnered directly with a global agency partner and opened access to its full datasets. This stands as testament to OMG’s status as a trusted partner across the media ecosystem.”  

Andy Power, CEO & Founder at Legacy, adds: “Our mission is to improve the understanding and activation of responsible media investment, through an ESG lens, leaving a lasting positive effect upon the world. The partnership with OMG UK and OmniGov allows us to greatly scale our offering in the UK and work towards full representation for media owners, crucially in minority owned media and other under-represented cohorts.” 

Stephanie Parry at Crown Commercial Service concludes: “It is all-important that the public sector is able to work with media owners that represent all sections of the British public. Measuring the ethics of the platforms they invest in, and then benchmarking them against our social value framework, will ensure the right investments are being made. It allows us collectively to minimise risk relating to impacts on society and the environment, and ensures media spend through our framework agreement is accountable to all stakeholders.”

Agreement enables OMG to leverage insights from over 20 million Tesco Clubcard members to deliver better outcomes at scale for clients’ retail media investments.  

Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc (NYSE: OMC) and leading global customer data science company dunnhumby today announced a first-mover partnership that will enable OMG agency teams to leverage advanced capability on the Tesco Media & Insight Platform to deliver better outcomes for Omnicom clients’ retail media investments.    

The Tesco Media and Insight Platform aggregates insights from over 20 million Clubcard members for the UK’s largest retailer and is accessed and powered by dunnhumby Sphere (dunnhumby’s data driven self-service platform).    

Under the terms of the agreement, OMG teams will now be able to plan, activate and measure retail media campaigns with Tesco directly on the platform and uniquely utilise more granular insights from the 20 million plus Clubcard members. This will enable more efficient spend decisioning, activation and optimization for campaigns across Tesco.com and in-store, as well as across a wide range of offsite media publishers, including ITVX and Meta. 

This access to unique data and insights will help accelerate and advance Omnicom clients’ connected commerce ambitions across POS, On-site and Offsite, while also providing first-to-market access to the latest product innovations within retail & digital advertising; and ensuring more investment accountability through closed loop measurement.  The partnership further enhances OMG clients’ ability to integrate retail consumer behaviours and insights into video and social advertising plans. 

With retail media rapidly expanding and expected to grow by over 20% annually until 2027, the partnership provides OMG clients with a market leading proposition that delivers both scale and measurement accountability in this increasingly important investment channel.  

Overall benefits to clients include:  

• Enhanced insights: Access to Tesco Media and Insight Platform through Sphere will provide clients with a deeper understanding of Tesco shoppers, enabling them to create more effective campaigns. 

• Improved targeting: OMG’s media planning and buying expertise will help clients reach their target audiences with greater precision. 
• Increased ROI: The partnership will help clients deliver more effective campaigns that drive real business results. 
• Robust Evaluation: Supporting OMG initiatives to establish industry best practices against measurement, such as the Council for Accountability and Standards in Advertising (CASA) which advocates quality, safety and transparency in media investment and measurement.   

Dan Clays, CEO, OMG UK: “ This collaboration is the latest in a series of first-mover partnerships that OMG has forged with leading retail media networks over the past year including Walmart Connect, Instacart, Uber Advertising  and Criteo , and it marks a significant step in reinforcing and expanding OMG’s position as the global leader in connected commerce.”  

Prateek Gupta, Managing Director of connected commerce consultancy OMG Transact, which will assure access to the Tesco platform across all Omnicom agencies: “This partnership is a substantial step for OMG UK, and our media agencies, in making Retail Media more impactful for our clients. Combining our media planning expertise and highly qualified Tesco Clubcard data & audience insights through the dunnhumby Sphere platform will enable us to deliver industry-leading, full-funnel connected commerce campaigns with greater precision.” 

Lee Roberts, Media Sales Director, Tesco Media & Insights Platform: ”We’re pleased to be joining forces with OMG UK on this important strategic partnership, combining their specialist planning and buying expertise with Tesco Media & Insight Platform’s unrivalled scale and leading data science capability. The partnership will provide OMG UK with unique insight and access to data from more than 20 million Tesco Clubcard holders, both sharpening media planning practices and ensuring more investment accountability through closed loop measurement.” 

We all know the metaverse represents a colossal opportunity for brands and is transforming marketing, media and advertising.  But with all the clamour around the metaverse, it’s likely that many brands might end up banished to the dark parallel world of The Regretaverse, a place of virtual failure built on short-term planning, faddish overreactions.

Don’t misunderstand. We know the metaverse is a game-changer. We know marketers and brands need to respond. We know some brands are already knocking it out of the park.  But many aren’t. We need a lucid and sober view of the opportunity the metaverse presents.

This report is a tough-love how-to guide on how to do the metaverse properly, featuring straight-laced principles on how brands can make the best of the biggest change to the media landscape in decades. Within this we cover three principles and three resulting sets of actions:

1. Be Definitive:  Why Brands Need To Define The Metaverse Properly
2. Be Discerning: Why Brands Do It Wrong And How You Can Put That Right
3. Be Durable: Why Brands Should Be In This For The Long Game

By following these rules, brands stand a better chance of inoculating themselves against the exaggeration that could ultimately give the metaverse a bad name.  Only a correctly defined, intelligently planned, and enduring metaverse strategy will propel brands to success, and ensure they avoid The Regretaverse.

Read the report here.

Omnicom Media Group has launched its digital analytics and cloud consultancy TRKKN in the UK.

Omnicom said the service offers advertisers greater flexibility to manage their Google marketing and cloud stack. It comes at a time when marketers are increasingly moving certain parts of their digital marketing efforts in-house and not making full use of their martech capabilities, according to Gartner research.

TRKKN services include digital analytics, ad tech, conversion optimisation, analytics and AI, cloud engineering, training and support, and strategy planning across Google products.

TRKKN will operate as a support service that Omnicom’s agencies, such as OMD UK, Manning Gottlieb OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science, can tap into, as well as a direct service for clients.

The consultancy will be led by Chris Swarbrick, who has worked at Omnicom Media Group for more than a decade and most recently served as managing partner of ad tech strategy.

“At the heart of the TRKKN offer is a simple promise: helping brands use technology to build deeper consumer connections,” Swarbrick said. “As head of TRKKN UK, my priority will be assuring the talent and technology needed to deliver on this promise for every client, every day, to grow their businesses.”

The consultancy was founded in Germany in 2008 and acquired by Omnicom in 2015. It claims it is one of the largest Google Marketing Platform sales partners in Europe. The service has expanded to 13 markets across Europe, APAC and North America.

Omnicom Media Group UK chief executive Dan Clays said marketers’ focus on digital transformation had made it the right time to expand TRKKN to the UK market.

“In this environment, marketer and agency operating models are also rapidly evolving, from agile service solutions supporting in-housing teams to always-on agency models,” he said.

“This has presented the perfect moment to bring TRKKN to the UK market – to further accelerate digital transformation for marketers and specifically to help capitalise on the scale and scope of the Google stack, in a way that is compatible for their business.”

Article originally published in Campaign here.

The Census takes place every 10 years and generates a snap-shot of the UK population. The first phase of the 2021 Census was released in the summer of 2022, compiling the most detailed data on the make-up of the UK since 2011.

Knowing the shifts in our population; who they are, where they are and their wellbeing, is vital to shaping an effective and inclusive brand strategy. While the full Census data set won’t be released until mid-2023, a staggered release of individual sets of data will run from Autumn to Winter 2022. To keep you informed, OMG UNITE have created ‘Census Shifts’, a content series exploring the trends and changes seen over the last three decades in our population, with a cultural twist.

Following our first set of ‘Census Shifts’ insights released alongside the initial Census data, we are pleased to share the second set of insights in the series.

The International Migration data of the 2021 Census was released on 2nd November. Whilst country of birth and passport do not equal ethnicity, and many UK-born diverse communities are not included in the stats (ethnicity data is due to be released late November), it is a strong indication on the growth and direction of our society in the UK. We have highlighted three key shifts and the implications they have on how brands approach inclusive marketing moving forwards.

Read the full article on OMG UNITE’s website here.