MAM
Publicis Media restructures organisation
MUMBAI Publicis Media CEO Steve King has unveiled structure and leadership appointments for the organization. “We are driven to get to the future first,” said King. “Publicis Media is a fresh opportunity to simplify our organisation, invent more modern approaches to gain efficiency, introduce structures for greater collaboration and effectiveness, and drive new levels of scale and client value.”
“The new Publicis Media imagined by Steve King is fully equipped to fit the future and best serve our clients,” Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy endorsed, “A leaner and simpler structure will bring more value to our clients and will further accelerate our growth.”
Publicis Media’s structure will cover Top 20 markets, organised by three regions and led by Regional CEO for the Americas Tim Jones, Regional CEO for EMEA Iain Jacob, and Regional CEO for APAC, Gerry Boyle.
At a global management level, Adrian Sayliss will become CFO for Publicis Media, Séverine Charbon will become the Chief Talent Officer for Publicis Media, and John Sheehy will oversee Global Clients for Publicis Media.
Publicis Media will consolidate its six global agency brands: Starcom, Mediavest, Spark, Zenith, Optimedia and Blue 449 into four global agency brands namely Starcom, Zenith, Mediavest | Spark and Optimedia | Blue 449. Starcom and Zenith will each continue to operate as global agency brands while Mediavest | Spark will be a third large global agency brand and Optimedia | Blue 449 will be brought together to form a powerful global challenger brand.
Each agency will be led by a Global Brand President with Lisa Donohue as Global Brand President for Starcom, Vittorio Bonori as Global Brand President for Zenith, Brian Terkelsen as Global Brand President for Mediavest | Spark, and Andras Vigh as Global Brand President for Optimedia | Blue 449. These
Global Brand Presidents will be responsible for leading clients, driving growth and enabling best work.
Additionally, there will be four US CEOs with Chris Boothe becoming CEO of Mediavest | Spark,
Dave Ehlers of Optimedia | Blue 449, Lou Rossi continuing at Zenith and Lisa Donohue continuing as US CEO for Starcom until a successor is named. All US brand leadership will report into Tim Jones, CEO of Americas.
Dave Penski will become Chief Investment Officer for Publicis Media in the U.S. overseeing all media investment and media vendor partnerships. He reports to Jones. Publicis Media’s U.S. consolidated investment power, estimated at $39 Billion and 33% market share, makes Publicis Media the largest media buying entity in the U.S., according to RECMA’s most recent Overall Activity Ranking Report.
Powering Publicis Media will be seven centralised ‘Global Practices’ that standardise approaches, scale quickly and deliver connectivity, consistency, that span geography, agency brands and clients.
These Global Practices will be:
• Data, Technology & Innovation led by Stephan Beringer
• Content led by Belinda Rowe
• Trading & Buying led by Simon Pardon
• Performance led by Michael Kahn
• Business Development & Communications led by Lauren Hanrahan
• Business Transformation led by Richard Hartell
• Analytics, Research & Insight led by Steve Simpson
In this new model, the agency network names of Starcom Mediavest Group and ZenithOptimedia Group are retired to better enable a flatter organisational structure. Publicis Media will deliver client value through combined scale and capabilities of our media agency brands.
VivaKi capabilities will be fully integrated into Publicis Media’s Global Practice model. Performics will remain Publicis Media’s global performance marketing brand and scale across all agency brands.
The reorganisation of Publicis Groupe’s media capabilities into a Publicis Media hub is part of Publicis Groupe’s transformation efforts previously announced. Publicis Groupe is organised into four Solutions hubs—Publicis Communications led by Arthur Sadoun, Publicis Media led by Steve King, Publicis.Sapient led by Alan Herrick and Publicis Health led by Nick Colucci—which are connected through a Chief Revenue Officer organization, led by Laura Desmond, which will deliver client satisfaction across Publicis Groupe’s entire range of services.
MAM
Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement
Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted
MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.
The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.
The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.
Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.
Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.
For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.
More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.
The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.
In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.
Brands
Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board
Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.
Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.
“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.
The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.
Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.
The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.
MAM
Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships
At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.
Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.
Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.
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