| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Publicis Retires Mediavest Brand | | Publicis Media is eliminating the Mediavest name from its Mediavest/Spark media agency, just a little over a year after it combined Mediavest and Spark into one agency. The new agency name will be Spark Foundry. The move was first reported by Variety. Chris Boothe, who was initially head of Spark and then oversaw Mediavest/Spark, is now the U.S. CEO of Spark Foundry. John Muszynski will continue as chief investment officer of Spark Foundry. Mediavest evolved out of one of the early media buying agencies Televest, which was started in 1993. At one point it represented major ad clients including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Walmart and Wendy's. Spark was born in 2007 as a boutique agency but then rolled out to become a full-service global media agency as part of the Starcom Mediavest Group in 2012. Last spring, Mediavest was merged into Spark. Since then, MediaVest Spark won major accounts including KFC, Mattel and H&R Block. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Consolidation by major ad agency holding companies seems to be the trend these days. WPP this week announced it is merging its shopper specialist agency Possible with digital and creative agency Wunderman. A few months earlier WPP merged GroupM media agency Maxus into MEC and last month GroupM agency Mindshare absorbed WPP creative agency Ogilvy's Neo. And Publicis is doing the same stride for stride. These mergers and name shifting are not only aimed at saving money, but also at repositioning the media buying agencies' perception among prospective clients as new and forward looking. As Variety reported, Spark Foundry is "a name that conjures an image of creating new ideas and efforts." And Spark Foundry's Booth says, "We're continuing to evolve our brand to meet marketplace needs." | Two Takes: Variety | MediaPost
| | | | #2 Deutsche Telekom Rethinks Media Strategy | | The German telecom giant, which controls wireless career T-Mobile U.S., is putting up its media buying up for review, and is planning to cut its TV budget, at least in Europe, and to put more money into digital, The Wall Street Journal reports. Deustche Telekom plans to potentially divide its European media operation into six different groups, such as programmatic buying and media intelligence, and divide up agency duties to support those tasks. In an internal document obtained by the WSJ, the company cites a need to attract consumers whose attention is shifting to mobile devices and away from traditional TV ads. Under the plan, the company plans to spend less on traditional TV, print, radio and out of home, but ad spending will increase on platforms like Facebook and YouTube. The company has invited holding companies Omnicom, WPP and Publicis to participate in review presentations. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: The big question is how will this new direction impact T-Mobile in the U.S., where there is a different competitive dynamic than there is in Europe. In the U.S., T-Mobile is locked into a ferocious battle for customers with the other major telecom companies – AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. And TV advertising in the U.S. is still a major part of T-Mobile's marketing plan. | | A Take: WSJ | | | | #3 Media Agency Hires Chief AI Officer | | New York-based independent media agency Crossmedia has hired Karim Sanjabi to the newly created role of executive director of cognitive solutions, or another title for chief artificial intelligence officer. An Ad Age report says his new duties will cover everything from client projects that use artificial intelligence-like chatbots or Alexa skills to other areas of cognitive solutions. And his role will continue to evolve as AI takes over a more intense role in media ad planning and buying. Sanjabi was founder of Freestyle Interactive, acquired by Carat Interactive in 2003, and most recently was CEO of creative tech company Robot Stampede. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Sanjabi says snubbing AI would be akin to an agency turning its back on social media 10 years ago. "If agencies don't make this kind of change right now, and really understand they have to really commit to [artificial intelligence], we're going to have an evolutionary separations," he says. "We're going to have two different species of agencies: One that evolved with AI and one that didn't." | A Take: Ad Age
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| | 80 | | Percentage of email marketers polled by the Data & Marketing Association who said email open rates on mobile devices were either equal to or greater than open rates on desktop computers. | – Reported by MediaPost
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| | Booming 'Big Brother' Paces CBS | by Michael Malone
CBS was the prime winner Thursday, putting up a 1.2 rating in viewers 18-49, per the Nielsen overnights, and a 5 share. Second was NBC at 0.8/4. Growth from both Big Brother and Zoo paced CBS to the win. CBS started prime with a pair of repeated comedies, before Big Brother grew 19% to 1.9. Drama Zoo scored a 0.6, which was up 20% over last week's premiere. NBC's Hollywood Game Night fell 11% to a 0.8, before The Wall did a 0.9, down a tenth of a point from last week. The Night Shift rated a flat 0.7. ABC was at 0.7/3. Boy Band scored a 0.6, up 20% from last week, while Battle of the Network Stars lost 30% from its premiere at 0.7. The Gong Show rated a 0.7, down 22% from last week. Fox scored a 0.6/3 with repeats of Beat Shazam and Love Connection. The CW too was in repeats, leading to a 0.3/1. Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision had a hearty 0.9/4 with the awards show Premios Juventud 2017 and Telemundo a 0.5/2. | |
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| • GARY FRENKEL was named to the newly created position of head of digital products and operations at Turner's TBS and TNT networks. He will oversee the networks' digital product development strategies, as well as day-to-day management and publishing of TV Everywhere apps and websites. He was most recently serving as a consultant to the networks. Prior to that he was senior VP of digital products and technology at Participant Media. He also served as senior VP of products and technology at Fox Interactive Media.
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