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Tag: Bob Lord

  • Horizon and Havas forge $20bn media giant to shake up agency world

    Horizon and Havas forge $20bn media giant to shake up agency world

    NEW YORK: Two heavyweights of the advertising world are joining forces to take on the industry’s entrenched giants. Horizon Media Holdings and Havas have launched Horizon Global, a joint venture that instantly vaults into the top tier of global media investors with $20bn in combined billings spanning more than 100 countries.

    The New York-based network arrives as a pointed alternative to what the partners call an increasingly “constrained” market dominated by a handful of holding companies. Horizon Global will hunt for American-centric global clients, whilst Horizon Media and Havas Media Network continue to operate independently on their existing books of business.

    At the venture’s core sits BluConverged, a mash-up of Horizon’s Blu platform and Havas’s Converged.AI that promises clients an “AI-native experience” delivering faster insights and genuine transparency—a perennial gripe in an industry notorious for opacity.

    “Built exclusively for the needs of the modern global marketer, Horizon Global is rewriting the agency network playbook,” said Horizon Media Holdings. chief executive and founder Bill Koenigsberg. “As the first agency network built in the AI era, we’re leading with future-forward ways of working.”

    Havas chief executive and chairman Yannick Bolloré  called the partnership “a significant moment” in a shifting industry landscape. “I’ve known Bill for years, and I’m incredibly proud Horizon has turned to Havas as its global partner.”

     Horizon Media Holdings president Bob Lord takes the helm as interim chief executive of Horizon Global whilst keeping his current role. Renata Spackova, based in Paris, becomes global chief operating officer, overseeing the rollout across more than 100 markets.

    The pair will report to a board including Koenigsberg, Bolloré, Peter Mears (global chief executive of Havas Media Network) and other senior leaders from both shops.

  • AOL is acquiring video ad platform Adap.tv for $405 mn

    AOL is acquiring video ad platform Adap.tv for $405 mn

    MUMBAI: TechCrunch-owner AOL has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire video advertising platform Adap.tv in a deal that should be worth a total of $405 million – $322 million in cash and $83 million in AOL common stock.

    AOL is a leader in online video and the combination of AOL and Adap.tv will create the leading video platform in the industry, said AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong in the press release announcing the deal. The Adap.tv founders and team are on a mission to make advertising as easy as e-commerce and the two companies together will aggressively pursue that vision.

    This tops the $315 million that AOL paid for the Huffington Post, making it the companys largest acquisition since Armstrong became CEO in 2009.

    Adap.tv will operate as an independent part of AOLs video organisation, which is led by senior vice president Ran Harnevo, and which itself is part of the broader ad offerings at AOL Networks (where Bob Lord was recently hired as CEO). The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
    One of Armstrongs big themes this year has been programmatic ad-buying, where ads are bought in an automated way – a couple of weeks ago he announced plans for a programmatic upfront event at Advertising Week. In the release, he says that Adap.tv is at the forefront of both the programmatic trend ad and the shift from traditional TV to online video.

    Adap.tv supported more than 26,000 ad campaigns that ran on 9,500 websites, AOL says.
    The video ad company was founded in 2006 and has raised a total of $48.6 million in funding. Investors include Gemini Israel Funds, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

  • Publicis strengthens digital with capabilities merger of LBi and Digitas

    MUMBAI: France-based media communications agency network Publicis Groupe will be merging the newly acquired digital agency LBi with its existing digital network Digitas. The merger is an effort towards forming a fully integrated global digital agency network, with digital marketing and technology capabilities at the core.

    The new network will be named DigitasLBi and be led by LBi chief executive Luke Taylor, who has been appointed DigitasLBi global CEO. He will report directly to Publicis Groupe Digital Technology Division CEO Bob Lord. Colin Kinsella will continue in his role as Digitas North America chief executive while Ewen Sturgeon remains LBi, Europe, Middle East and Asia chief executive.

    Along with sister Publicis Groupe digital brands Razorfish and Rosetta, DigitasLBi cements Publicis Groupe‘s ambitions in the area of digital for its clients and the future of the communications sector. Publicis Groupe‘s share of revenue derived from digital operations is now over 35 per cent, enhancing its ability to deliver innovative and best-in-class services to clients.

    DigitasLBi will be a complete digital agency network leveraging the longstanding dominance of Digitas in the USA – where it is the largest digital agency – with LBi‘s strong position in Europe and the leading position enjoyed by both agencies in Asia Pacific. DigitasLBi will comprise 5,700 best-in-class digital and technology experts in 25 countries around the world. DigitasLBi clients include American Express, Coca-Cola, Delta, eBay, L‘Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, Mondelez P&G, Nissan, Sprint and Starbucks.

    Digitas and LBi share strong grounding in digital, including data, direct, social, search and platform delivery. Pooling these skill sets, DigitasLBi‘s service offering will provide clients with unique depth and breadth of expertise across a wide range of digital disciplines, including strategy and analytics, performance marketing, service design, e-commerce, brand strategy, content development, mobile, market research, CRM, search and social media.

    The new digital network‘s “end-to-end” proprietary technology suite will include LBi‘s Audience Engagement Platform as well as Digitas‘ CRM365 Intelligence Platform and award-winning BrandLIVE. The combination of these technologies and surrounding services will allow DigitasLBi to form a uniquely perceptive view of the customer and distribute creative content efficiently across earned, owned and paid media channels, driving marketing effectiveness and delivering better value to brands.

    Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy said, “Advertisers need a truly integrated and global digital network that can anticipate trends, forecast the ‘next‘, while constantly innovating in our ever-changing world. The combination of Digitas and LBi will create the world‘s leading concentration of digital skills and competencies in the world, capable of delivering solutions to all clients, everywhere. The formation of DigitasLBi is an essential landmark. It will certainly be the most competitive, attractive network in the market for both clients and talent.”

    A team of senior LBi, Digitas and Publicis Groupe executives will oversee the merger process under the leadership of Digitas and Razorfish International CEO Stephan Beringer, ensuring flawless delivery of the newly enhanced service offering to clients in every geography.

    Lord said, “One of the key strategic tenets of the combined DigitasLBi offering is the scalable, flexible technology and product suite that will help meet the full spectrum of marketer needs from audience engagement, to sense-and-respond content development and publishing, to real-time relationship marketing. This is an exciting union between two powerful brands, with complementary strengths in product and service that will redefine the role of an agency.”

    Taylor said, “DigitasLBi represents for the first time that insight, content and distribution has been brought together in one agency, providing clients with a truly integrated, best-in-class, global offering.”

    The creation of DigitasLBi will not affect MRY, which will remain a standalone entity under the leadership of founder and Chief Executive Matt Britton. With an enhanced headcount and service offering, MRY will continue to operate as an integrated agency with a social center of gravity.

  • Razorfish launches Co-Lab to co-create products

    MUMBAI: Razorfish, Publicis Groupe’s digital and technology agency, has launched Razorfish Co-Lab, a new property that will co-create products with media and platform partners on behalf of its clients.

    The co-created products will intersect media, creative and technology aspects and will include operations, branded utility, platform ad experiences and campaign innovation.

    Razorfish’s Margaret Czeisler has been appointed to oversee and drive partnership opportunities for Co-Lab and will report to Jeff Lanctot, the agency’s chief media officer.

    Razorfish global CEO Bob Lord said, “We’ve long worked closely with our clients on next-generation storytelling through APIs, product manufacturing and evolutionary innovation. After experiencing such exponential growth in these areas, we realized we needed to formalize a transferable, scalable process that could span the varying nature of these opportunities, and this required the soup-to-nuts dedication of an entire practice as well as focused partnerships with key technology platform providers.”

    Razorfish has prior experience in co-developing products for clients when it facilitated collaboration between a major airline and the Windows 8 platform. Additional partners include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Foursquare, among others.

    Microsoft Advertising Yarn general manager Stephen Kim said, “We were thrilled to bring on Razorfish so early and work together in a co-ideation process to imagine what might be possible for in-app advertising on Windows 8. The concepts and thinking that Razorfish demonstrated is just the beginning of what is possible when we combine creativity and technology on Windows 8.”

    LinkedIn global head of agency relationships Jon Williams said, “We’re thrilled to be a beta partner for Co-Lab. We are working together to help key clients understand how to really leverage the power of the LinkedIn professional graph. It makes sense for us to partner where we can scale innovative ideas across a broad portfolio of clients. Razorfish can provide access to creative expertise and a definitive process.”

    “Given the tight alignment between media, creative and technology at Razorfish, we‘re an agency that is uniquely qualified to co-develop new products with our partners,” said Lord. “As the lines between these functions continue to converge, we’re thrilled to offer a concentrated team who can expedite and lead this process. While we will of course continue to buy standard ad offerings from our partners, we think Co-Lab provides a chance to create products that really stand out for our client‘s customers.”