IPG Mediabrands

IPG Mediabrands launches global content studio

November 10, 2020

Mediabrands

The media agency network is formalizing its capabilities across branded, original and dynamic content in 12 markets.

In today’s fragmented media landscape, the message has to fit the medium.

Media agencies are often in the best position to make that link because of the audience data they sit on and their expertise across media platforms. That’s why IPG Mediabrands said on Tuesday it’s formalizing a content offering across its agencies — UM, Initiative and Reprise — to deliver on this need for clients.

The offering, called Mediabrands Studios, will be led by Brendan Gaul, who has been elevated to global chief content officer at Mediabrands. The group pulls together pockets of creative capabilities from Mediabrands agencies in 12 key markets, from long-form documentaries and branded content at UM and Initiative to dynamic content from Reprise.

“There are great creative products across the Mediabrands agencies,” Gaul said. “I’m going to figure out how to connect the pipes for all of our clients.”

Gaul is developing a consistent suite of content products across Mediabrands, underpinned by a layer of technology that makes it easy for all of its agencies to access. Gaul declined to go into detail because the tools are in development.

But pieces of the creative offering exist across the Mediabrands network. UM Studios, for example, has 80 people creating award-winning documentaries for brands that allow them to show up on ad-free platforms like Netflix. For example, the agency created “5B,” a documentary about the 1980s AIDS epidemic backed by Johnson & Johnson that was the first brand-funded film to debut at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix in 2019. It’s now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Entertainment-style content can be supported by partnerships with influencers and production companies through relationships at UM or Initiative, or with dynamic content created for e-commerce and digital media at Reprise.

The goal will be to create consistent and personalized brand campaigns that reach audiences with the right message in the right context, depending on where they are in that moment.

“Instead of having to go to different agencies, we will create one idea built to travel across the different kinds of content our media plans call for,” Gaul said.

Mediabrands studios will work closely with creative agencies to adapt big brand campaigns and ideas to specific mediums. Creative agencies can come up with the big idea, but they often don’t have the audience data or media relationships to pull off platform-specific tweaks, said Gaul, who started his career on the creative side at McCann.

“We’re in the strongest position to quarterback the way an idea should move across a media plan,” he said. “An idea needs to look different on Facebook, YouTube, in a TV spot or an e-commerce banner, and being at the center of the media ecosystem gives us a leg up.”

Media agencies are also in the right position to reallocate ad budgets toward original entertainment programs on ad-free platforms. Creative agencies are the masters of brand storytelling, but they often don’t know how to create entertainment that’s purpose-built to be sold to distributors, Gaul said.

“Creative agencies make things that they give to media agencies to distribute,” he said. “To do that, you have to act and operate like an entertainment studio.”

All of Mediabrands’ clients are touching the content offering in some way through their individual relationships with its agencies. Mediabrands has about 330 creative people across its top 12 markets, and Gaul is evaluating where the group needs to hire talent to fill in any gaps in the Studio offering. He declined to share which markets Mediabrands Studio is launching in.

“Creative and media have been separated for so long, and clients have always wanted us to work more closely together,” Gaul said. “This gives us the opportunity to create a bit of infrastructure that can make that real for clients.”

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Reprise launches global e-commerce group for IPG Mediabrands

October 29, 2020

Reprise

The group will combine 250 e-commerce experts across the world to develop and deploy modern retail strategies for clients.

E-commerce groups are a must-have at the big global agencies today.

And on Thursday, IPG Mediabrands digital agency Reprise is the latest to announce a global solution that helps clients navigate the new retail landscape.

Reprise has always had e-commerce capabilities, but it wanted to expand and formalize those offerings as online shopping exploded this year during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Will Margaritis, head of e-commerce in North America at Reprise.

“With changes in the market, we’ve been looking to increase the scope of work we can do in e-commerce and take a full service offering to the market,” he explained. “E-commerce has become such a more critical part of the brand experience and consumer journey.”

While e-commerce used to be about managing a brand’s Amazon strategy, brands now need to grapple with multiple e-retail marketplaces from Walmart to Target, as well as direct-to-consumer plays. That requires real-time data on not just ad performance, but supply-chain operations and warehousing.

To help clients pull all of this together, Reprise works with platforms such as Profitero, which tracks the e-commerce funnel including sales, pricing, ROI, market share and inventory availability. The team also pulls data directly from major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Amazon and builds out custom dashboards that aggregate that data with client ad spend for a full-picture view.

“That allows us to understand who the consumer is, what social channels they spend time on and from there, send them to the store where they’re most likely to convert, or where the brand wants them to convert,” Margaritis said.

Reprise can then tie that data back to how an online campaign impacts in-store sales and optimize along the way, or to understand why a product that’s being advertised is out of stock in stores and adjust the strategy quickly.

“We can see, if we just spent half a million dollars for a campaign on Walmart, where did the sales come from? Did it cannibalize in-store sales? Did the product get purchased on Amazon instead?” Margaritis added.

Reprise commerce is currently working with IPG technology unit Kinesso to automate the process of pulling all of this data together. The team plans to launch a planning tool that combines vertical-specific knowledge to help clients identify the best places to sell based on their budget and target audience. “That saves us probably a month of optimization,” Margaritis said.

Reprise also integrates with platforms such as Magento and Shopify to help clients with their DTC strategies and experience design, an increasingly important area during the pandemic.

“Back in April and May, supply chains started breaking down,” Margaritis said. “We’re seeing many brands say, in case anything else happens, we want something that’s completely under our control.”

Reprise has hired people outside of the advertising world with backgrounds in e-commerce, retail and supply-chain logistics to staff the core Reprise commerce team, which is currently 15 people in the U.S. and 35 globally. The group can tap into e-commerce experts across the Mediabrands agencies, depending on the client’s needs. The agency plans to double the core commerce team this year.

“We’re doing the backbone of e-commerce strategy and bringing that to Reprise and the rest of Mediabrands,” Margaritis said.

Currently the team is working with eight clients, for whom its already driving efficiencies, Margaritis said. For one large U.K.-based client, Reprise commerce drove a 10% increase in ad-attributed sales on Amazon in three months. Another U.S.-based client saw a 14-fold increase in revenue and a 2.5-fold increase in return on ad spend after working with the group.

Reprise commerce’s goal is to be included in more global pitches this year as commerce becomes central to the advertising process.

“It really is a holistic offering where we are part of every single activation a client is doing within Mediabrands,” Margaritis said. “We’re in the planning process figuring out how to add e-commerce metrics or shoppability or commerce to every activation.”

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Seven questions leaders must ask to futureproof the agency model

October 19, 2020

The past year has reshaped consumer behavior, disrupting how businesses work and driving marketers to pivot and innovate.

E-commerce accelerated by a decade in a matter of months thanks to COVID-19, causing nearly half of small businesses to close and forcing brands to rethink strategies for the future. The nationwide reckoning over race this summer prompted brands to take a stand on social issues to better balance profit with purpose.

So, when the new constant is radical, fast-moving change, how do business leaders decide what bets to make in a sea of endless – but potentially rudderless – possibilities?

First, we must accept that the models of the past won’t work in this new reality. The way forward is full of unknowns unfolding at an unprecedented rate. Agencies can futureproof by embracing the now and the next with an open mind, while challenging legacy ways of working and understanding how to pivot quickly.

To execute on a futureproof model, agencies and clients must ask themselves seven questions:

#1: In a sea of complexity, what’s the single most important result?

Identifying, owning and organizing around a clear North Star is fundamental to a futureproof business model.

It’s all too easy to waste time, energy and resources chasing dog whistle KPIs that drain progress. It’s more imperative than ever to decide what to chase and why, and remove impediments by designing the right framework to operate and measure success.

#2: What “next” question will matter most?

According to the Law of Accelerating Returns by futurist Ray Kurzweil, we will experience 20,000 years of change in this century alone. The intervals between those changes will get shorter and shorter, blurring the lines between today and tomorrow.

This requires agencies to go beyond toe-in-the-water testing and lean into opportunities that lie around the corner.

Good bets allow us to transform faster and enjoy the fruits of innovation. When we get it wrong – and we will, if we’re trying hard enough – the speed and incremental nature of the journey mitigates major risk.

#3: How do we achieve growth in a sustainable way?

As marketing embraced data and technology, it shifted from a cost center to a growth driver. But there was a price: the industry’s Holy Grail became short-term ROI.

This narrow definition of success ignores the fundamentals of marketing science. It also fails to account for the consumer experience and the nuances in every individual journey. We need to reverse this trend and build upon what has been proven over time, while adopting innovations that advance growth.

#4: How healthy is your core?

The marketing funnel remains a core framework for understanding the consumer journey. For decades, media and advertising focused primarily on the upper funnel to drive brand awareness. Then came big investments in data, causing us to exercise our collective muscle against the lower funnel to bolster performance.

This has left the middle funnel – the connective tissue – sorely ignored.

With the signals and analytics we now have, we can develop a forensic understanding of how to optimize the entire funnel for growth. It’s as simple and as difficult as meeting all consumers where they are, individually. Anything less leaves value on the table.

#5: When the path is clear, are you ready to go?

Organizational transparency and simplification is crucial as the world becomes more complex.

While the intelligence arms at agencies are expanding, the underlying delivery mechanisms – structure, decision-making, process, workflow – have been slower to adapt. This is an advantage start-ups enjoy because they tend to organize around the needs of the customer, and are free from legacy measures of success.

An agile and frictionless delivery process is as important as the intelligence itself. As Peter Drucker said, “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”

#6: Are your stakeholders all-in?

Change management isn’t easy, and the more disruptive the change, the more complicated the task. But change doesn’t happen unless the community buys into the vision, understands the path and commits to taking the steps to carry it forward.

Landing the vision and strategy is easy. Making it happen is the hard work.

#7: Are you paying for what you want, versus what you get?

You get what you pay for.

Designing a commercial model that shapes and incentivizes the right behaviors and outcomes is critical. If an organization’s motivations are not aligned with its values, you’ll be paying for what you get.

Full commitment to a commercial model that is fair, logical, transparent, values-driven, and futureproof is the surest way to advance the agency-client model.

Eileen Kiernan is Global CEO at UM.

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IPG Mediabrands Names First Global Chief Culture Officer

September 9, 2020

Mediabrands

IPG Mediabrands hired Hermon Ghermay as its first global chief culture officer. She will oversee the media agency network’s worldwide cultural efforts in the role, including its diversity, equity and inclusion strategy, planning and execution.

The agency said Ghermay, who has been serving as a director at executive search firm Grace Blue since 2015, will be responsible for holding global, regional and local leadership accountable for the company’s diversity commitments and goals. She will lead the network’s global learning and development efforts and partner with the rest of the leadership team worldwide to drive its “culture forward,” according to IPG Mediabrands.

Ghermay will report directly to IPG Mediabrands Global CEO Daryl Lee.

“Culture is the operating system of an organization, and now more than ever we must look at what’s happening at the intersection of identity and corporate culture and ensure that we’re creating an environment where people feel seen, heard and supported,” Ghermay said in a statement.

Ghermay began her career as an account supervisor at Leo Burnett Chicago in 2000. She stayed with the Publicis Groupe creative agency for six years. She then held account director roles at IPG agency Deutsch and Omnicom Group’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners before joining Grace Blue in August 2015. At Grace Blue, Ghermay is credited with managing a diverse portfolio of senior leadership searches on the brand and agency sides.

She also sits on the directors council of the VCU Brandcenter.

“Curious, connected and high-achieving, Hermon reflects all the best attributes and values of our empowered global culture here at Mediabrands,” Lee said in a statement. “Culture is often a motivation for why people join our company, but a strong culture always has room to grow and be better. Hermon will help make Mediabrands a place where everyone can flourish and thrive, and a community which attracts and retains the best talent.”

IPG Mediabrands recently announced a five-point plan to achieve equity throughout its network, which includes agencies UM, Initiative, Reprise and Magna. As part of those plans, the agency set up the Mediabrands Heritage Network, which it said will “seek to inspire, educate and celebrate talent in our business from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds and support a progressive company culture through events, thought leadership and internal activations.”

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IPG Mediabrands Releases First-of-Its-Kind Media Responsibility Audit of Social Media Platforms

August 13, 2020

Media Responsibility, Our Values

YouTube’s Headstart In Brand Safety Efforts Help Them Top The Audit Rankings

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–IPG Mediabrands today released its Media Responsibility Audit, the first-of-its-kind, as part of a larger effort aimed at enhancing brand safety and media responsibility in advertising. The social media platform audit was based on the Media Responsibility Principles Mediabrands recently released to the public, which are geared toward protecting brands and the communities that a brand serves, weighing the impact of harmful content, and evaluating the policies of different platforms and their enforcement. The Media Responsibility Audit included doing a comprehensive assessment of all the primary social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, twitch, Twitter, and YouTube) against the 10 principles to check current status and accountability against each principle. The audit was comprised of 250 questions in total and focused on establishing a benchmark on what a responsible platform looks like.

Led by Mediabrands’ performance agency, Reprise, the audit showed that many platforms are taking steps to improve their media responsibility performance. Major findings revealed what average versus great looks like, as well as who is leading and setting the standards for the industry. Every media partner was benchmarked against the best-in-class result, and Mediabrands was able to create tables that rank media partners overall and how they perform against the industry average. A key finding, that YouTube tops the overall rankings and performs best against several principles, is a testament to the changes YouTube has made in response to advertiser brand safety concerns three years ago. The audit will occur quarterly to enable platforms to demonstrate progress and help clients hold media partners accountable to commitments to improve.

“The Mediabrands’ Media Responsibility Audit comes on the heels of the challenge to the industry to ensure we are all taking part in safeguarding the media channels that are used in advertising, and furthermore, making sure they do not result in or contribute to harm,” said Joshua Lowcock, Chief Digital Officer, UM, and Global Brand Safety Officer, Mediabrands.

“What this audit shows is that there is work to be done across all platforms from a media responsibility perspective, and that the different platforms each need to earn their place on a brand’s marketing plan,” said Elijah Harris, Global Head of Social, Mediabrands’ agency Reprise. “Our audit aims to deliver transparency to advertisers and consumers about the specifics of each platform with regard to our 10 principles. The audit is a tool to hold platforms accountable for improving their media responsibility policies and enforcement and to ensure we can track progress over time. We hope the audit resonates with our industry and we can all work towards creating a greater good together.”

Key findings of the audit included:

Policy Enforcement Matters: Platforms fall short by not backing up their policies with consistent enforcement of those policies. Most platforms have some level of enforcement reporting, but these are inconsistent and limited in scope. They rarely focus on the platforms holding themselves accountable for their own enforcement of policies. There is a need to better define expectations and metrics to be included within future policy enforcement reporting.

Lack of Consistency Across Platforms: Given broad regulations that surround anti-discrimination and data privacy (e.g. GDPR/CCPA), there are opportunities to become even more consistent in how data collection policies are enacted across the various social platforms.

Eradicating Hate Speech Is A Common Goal: There is a shared recognition across platforms that eliminating hate speech is important but there are inconsistent definitions of what qualifies as hate speech, inconsistent identification of protected classes of people, and a lack of prevalence reporting and independent auditing of hate speech reports. GARM’s proposed work to resolve these issues will be critical.

Misinformation Is A Challenge: Misinformation is a challenge across most platforms. While certain platforms work with many organizations to combat misinformation, others work with none at all. Some platforms cited their unique engagement models as reason to de-prioritize fact-checking, but our desktop research shows that even minor instances can lead to unsafe ad placement for advertisers.
Non-Registered User Experiences Vary: For platforms that allow access to their services without user registration, there is an opportunity to be more consistent with that user experience. Some platforms still allow certain advertising placements to be viewed by a non-registered user, which may not result in responsible media delivery.

Urgent Need For Third-party Verification: Only a few partners have specific controls for protecting advertisers from adjacency to content in objectionable or harmful categories (as in GARM’s brand safety framework). The industry needs to promote and use third-party verification partners more widely, so we are not at the mercy of the platforms’ lack of controls.

“With this effort, we are seeking to raise the bar in the industry by holding platforms to a higher standard of responsibility: keeping brands, and the communities they serve, safe,” said Daryl Lee, Global CEO, Mediabrands. “By taking this objective, data-driven approach, I am confident clients will see improved accountability for media responsibility and, moreover, improved business performance of social media advertising as a result.”

For those interested in accessing the full report and to learn more about the audit, please contact Elijah Harris.

ABOUT MEDIABRANDS:
Mediabrands is the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). Mediabrands manages approximately $40 billion in marketing investment globally on behalf of its clients across its full-service agency networks UM and Initiative and through its award-winning specialty business units Reprise, MAGNA, Orion Holdings, Rapport, Healix and the IPG Media Lab. Mediabrands clients include many of the world’s most recognizable and iconic brands from a broad portfolio of industry sectors including automotive, personal finance, consumer product goods (CPG), pharma, health and wellness, entertainment, financial services, energy, toys and gaming, direct to consumer and e-commerce, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, fashion and beauty. The company employs more than 13,000 diverse marketing communication professionals in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit our website: www.ipgmediabrands.com and be sure to follow us on Twitter or Instagram.

Press Contact:
Zinnia Gill
Director, Global Corporate Communications
Mediabrands
[email protected]
646.965.4271

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Marketers Extend Their Social-Media Scrutiny Beyond Facebook

August 13, 2020

Media Responsibility, Our Values

IPG Mediabrands begins a quarterly report on social platforms’ practices

By Nat Ives

The July advertiser boycott against Facebook Inc. over the way it handles unwelcome content generated some results, at least in the eyes of organizers, and a flood of headlines.

But parts of the ad industry also are taking a wider look at the other players in social media. Although there are no signs of new boycotts brewing, the scrutiny could affect how social media companies handle hate speech, misinformation and other content.

IPG Mediabrands, a media planning-and-buying group within ad-agency giant Interpublic Group of Cos ., has begun what it says will be a quarterly report comparing top social media platforms’ content policies and practices.

The report is meant to help marketers determine which platforms fit their values and to avoid focusing only on the platform in the hot seat at the moment, said Elijah Harris, global head of social at Reprise, an agency that is part of Mediabrands.

“It’s important to have an objective assessment and not simply allow the news cycle to dictate how we vet these partners,” Mr. Harris said.

Some marketers have been making their own painstaking, case-by-case evaluations of the platforms.

“After a 30-day re-evaluation of our national social media advertising on all social platforms, we are returning to several social media outlets, including YouTube and Pinterest,” a Ford Motor Co. spokesman said. “We are still evaluating other partners, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok.”

Coca-Cola Co. has resumed advertising on platforms including YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and LinkedIn, part of Microsoft Corp., after a pause, according to the company, but hasn’t returned to platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Inc.

“As we continue to assess each platform, we can confirm that our re-entry to social media will be a phased approach by channel,” a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola said.

Ranking the Platforms
Mediabrands’ first quarterly report, which came out Thursday, ranked YouTube No. 1 for what it calls media responsibility, giving it the highest cumulative score across 10 areas such as the handling of hate speech, measures against misinformation and transparency for advertisers. Out of nine platforms evaluated, Facebook ranked fifth and TikTok came in last.

YouTube responded to a well-publicized brand-safety incident in 2017, when some brands pulled back after they found their ads running alongside extremist content on the site. YouTube restricted ads to a smaller pool of larger channels, for example, and made it easier for marketers to keep their ads away from certain content.

“YouTube learned the hard way and has actually leaned into the changes that needed to be made,” said Mr. Harris.

Mediabrands said TikTok fell below the average on areas such as providing controls for advertisers and transparency on ad placements. TikTok was unable to fully answer some questions around diversity, equity and inclusion, according to Mediabrands.

TikTok, a unit of ByteDance Ltd., said it takes steps to ensure a positive experience for users and brands. The company is opening what it calls transparency and accountability centers where observers can watch its content moderators at work, and releases regular reports on its enforcement of its policies.

“Promoting a safe environment for everyone on TikTok is our top priority,” Blake Chandlee, vice president of global business solutions at TikTok, said in a statement.

Facebook said this week it is improving the detection and removal of hate speech from its namesake platform as well as from Instagram. In the second quarter of the year, it detected 95% of the hate speech it removed from Facebook before someone else reported it, up from 89% in the first quarter, the company said. It also has committed to other actions, including hiring a civil rights leader at the vice president level.

“We’ve invested billions of dollars to keep hate off of our platform, and we have a clear plan of action with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and the industry to continue this fight,” a spokeswoman said.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media is a group of advertisers, media companies, technology companies and others focused on improving safety standards online. Facebook’s commitments to GARM include adopting proposals regarding the definition of hate speech and the performing of two outside audits of its transparency reports and ad policies.

Twitter said its policies protect advertisers as well as users. “We are proud of what we have accomplished by developing brand-safe policies and platform capabilities, and as always, are committed to continuing this work,” a spokeswoman said.

Snap Inc., parent of Snapchat, said its service avoids amplifying misinformation or other unwelcome content, partly because it offers a curated feed of content and lacks an open news feed.

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UM’s Arielle Garcia: Privacy must become a business imperative

July 30, 2020

Privacy and Data Ethics, UM

Her new role as the media giant’s first chief privacy officer covers the vast scope of a consumer’s personal preference to a world of local, national and global compliance regulations.

As privacy regulations and government oversight increases, global media agency UM took the initiative to create the position of chief privacy officer. And who better to fill that role than agency stalwart Arielle Garcia, who was most recently VP of business operations and compliance for UM’s ExxonMobil and Accenture accounts.

UM CEO Lynn Lewis has emphasized driving a “culture of compliance” at the agency and on behalf of clients, partners and the industry at large. One big reason why Garcia stepped into this new role is that over her seven-plus years at UM, she has been on board for early discussions and ongoing policy-making for this increasingly important issue.

With some regulations even becoming obtrusive to deal with, it would be wrong to assume that consumers just click-through all those GDPR and CCPA disclaimers, said Garcia. “I would say that the emergence of these laws in and of itself is some indication of the continued importance of the use of personal data to society,” she said.

A graduate of Fordham University School of Law, Garcia will also spearhead UM parent group IPG Mediabrands’ new privacy task force and continue to handle compliance for ExxonMobil.

Campaign US interviewed Garcia about the new job and what privacy means in today’s social and online marketplace.

What are the key privacy issues that media agencies need to address?

As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve domestically and internationally, media agencies need to maintain a deep understanding of the digital ecosystem, evolution in consumer sentiment and emerging focus areas for lawmakers and civil society.

In the same way that clients trust their media agency partners to act as responsible stewards of media investment, there is now a new dimension of that responsibility and stewardship with regard to data. Clients rely on their agencies to understand how data is collected, used and shared across the ecosystem. This responsibility to drive ethical data collection and use across the ecosystem is foundational to our client service.

Further, as strategic partners to our clients, we deliver media recommendations and solutions tailored to their needs. The way that our clients approach privacy adds a new dimension to the factors we consider in developing these tailored recommendations.

What issue is most concerning to clients? And then to consumers?

I’d like to answer this in reverse, as it’s the consumer sentiment that drives the obligations and imperatives of the businesses or brands that serve them.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of how their data is collected and used. As a result, consumers increasingly expect companies to provide them with transparency about the use of their data, as well as choice over how their data is used and, most importantly, how and with whom it is shared.

To that end, consumers have indicated continued willingness to share their data with the brands they trust, so maintaining that trust is critical to brands. Further, consumers expect to derive value from the data that they share – for example, via personalized offers from the brands they’ve chosen to engage with.

As a result, for our clients, building and maintaining consumer trust is central to delivering effective data-driven marketing. Because with trust comes responsibility, clients need to be confident that the data they’re collecting from consumers is used appropriately and protected rigorously by the partners they share it with in the ecosystem.

Finally, our clients are navigating new compliance obligations that differ across countries and states and many of which contain some degree of ambiguity. Ultimately, clients want to understand that their interpretation, position and approach is reasonable.

Your CEO speaks of the culture of compliance at the agency. We’ve had GDPR and CCPA, but I wonder how deeply most consumers care to consider these privacy laws. What are your thoughts?

Consumers are and will continue to be attentive to issues concerning their privacy, and increasingly consider how their data is collected, used and shared by companies and brands.

These laws serve the purpose of translating consumer norms and expectations into rights for people and obligations for businesses, so I would say that the emergence of these laws in and of itself is some indication of the continued importance of the use of personal data to society.

What, specifically, do you think about the opposing forces of social media and the privacy movement? How do brands open up dialogue with consumers, protect their public forums and the people who post on them during these politically volatile times?

I don’t see social media and privacy as mutually exclusive phenomena. Indeed, the interplay of social media and privacy underscores the importance of the core concepts of transparency, choice and responsibility. People use social media because they derive value from it. They expect that the information they share with companies and brands via their use of social media is treated with respect. They want to know how their data is being used without needing to click on nested links to read legalese. People want to have the right to say, “No, I don’t want you to share my data with this third party that I don’t know.”

To that end, brands should engage authentically with people on social media and beyond. They should clearly explain to consumers in their own brand voice how their information is used, with whom it is shared and what value consumers receive in exchange. Brands should also demand that the social media platforms they use to reach their consumers uphold these standards of responsibility, and that the platforms protect and respect their users with the same rigor.

What do brands need to address as we wind down 2020? What further protections do you think your position will be most focused on in 2021?

Many brands have to date needed to prioritize their focus on privacy from a compliance perspective. The heightened attention to societal impacts of advertising will likely catalyze the shift in mindset for brands to look beyond compliance to consider how their use of data is responsible, ethical, fair and beneficial from the consumer’s perspective.

This is where it becomes incredibly important for marketers and media clients to engage in dialogue internally and with their agencies about the topic of privacy – a shift from the traditional view of privacy as predominantly a legal issue, to a business imperative that is a core consideration in developing data strategy, consumer experience, brand trust and loyalty.

This will also lead to an increased emphasis on threading these principles through the value chain as brands look to drive responsible use of data by their media and ad tech partners.

Privacy is an incredibly dynamic space. Domestically, several states are working to enact their own laws, and we can expect to see a continued push for federal legislation. Internationally, we can expect to see similar trends and developments.

Looking ahead to 2021, we can expect public sentiment to continue to evolve, along with the regulatory environment. We look forward to continuing to engage in the industry dialogue, collaborating with our partners and clients to develop effective, responsible marketing and advertising that delivers value to the communities that brands serve.

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Mediabrands CEO Addresses ‘Shocking Brutality’ and Racism

July 15, 2020

Mediabrands

We are all facing the reality of news around the COVID pandemic that has been chilling: the announcement of daily deaths, the images of body bags in refrigerated morgue trucks, the scenes of nursing homes with ambulances lined up around them. This is a trauma we all face, every day, and that we all share in. And will continue to do for some time until we have a vaccine and hopefully also a cure for COVID.

But underneath that shared trauma, has been a tragedy that only some of us have felt. That is the story of the lives of communities of color, who have been disproportionately hit by the impact of the virus, for a variety of reasons including a systemic lack of access to quality healthcare.

Now, on top of this raw truth, over the past few months and as recently as this past week, we have had to deal with stories of shocking brutality against people of color. I know I speak for everyone at Mediabrands when I say that these acts of violence against people of color have horrified us all. At a time when our shared vulnerability as human beings is so clear, it is sickening that we need to re-affirm that everyone matters in our society. But we need to, and we do.

But it is also important to recognize that some of our colleagues will have been affected more deeply and more personally by these actions. They will need us to show them extra consideration and companionship during this already anxious time. Please take the time to reach out, show them you care and support them in any way that you can.

We are a community of care, built on the shared values of modern democracy: respect for the dignity of all, and recognition of the equality of everyone. We can take comfort in knowing that our community and its values represent those of the vast majority of people in the world.

As we watch people and leaders around the country join together to condemn racism in all its forms, institutional and personal, we will re-dedicate ourselves at Mediabrands to making our culture of care even stronger: more diverse and more united. That is what we can do, and what we will do.

Please take care of yourselves and, especially, each other during this time.

And let’s take care of our future together.

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Ezra Geld Named Head of Mediabrands Brazil

July 14, 2020

Mediabrands

Ezra Geld has joined Mediabrands as CEO for Brazil.

Ezra has more than 23 years of experience in Marketing, Advertising and Digital Transformation. He started his career in PHD London as Media Manager and then joined J. Walter Thompson Brazil where he continued to develop professionally in important leadership roles as a commercial consultant, media director, managing director and then becoming the Chief Strategy Officer of the agency.

Ezra graduated from Bristol and Cornell universities with a degree in History and Liberal Arts and has a postgraduate in Advanced Strategic Management from IMD.

His passion for digital transformation and his strategic business vision focused on business outcomes will be valuable contributions to the development of our group in Brazil.

Ezra will be based in Sao Paulo and will report directly to Sergio Kessissian, LATAM Mediabrands CEO.

Mediabrands Introduces Media Responsibility Principles

July 13, 2020

Mediabrands

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mediabrands today released its 10 Media Responsibility Principles (MRP) as part of a larger effort to balance brand safety and brand responsibility in advertising.

While “Brand Safety” protects the brand, “Brand Responsibility” protects the communities that a brand serves, weighing the societal impact of the content, the publishers and services, and the platforms being funded by advertising. Mediabrands’ MRPs are a call to action for companies to hold themselves to higher standards more broadly when it relates to brand safety and brand responsibility matters, not just in media.

“If it is the purpose of a brand to serve the public, and advertising is the way to build brands, then brands need to ensure that the same media channels used for advertising to reach people do not result in or contribute to harm,” said Joshua Lowcock, Chief Digital Officer, UM and Global Brand Safety Officer, Mediabrands. “Our Media Responsibility Principles will serve as an important check and balance in helping marketers and their agencies make better decisions on where to invest media and hold partners accountable.”

“We are advising our clients, as well as all advertisers and marketers industry-wide, to adapt these Media Responsibility Principles in alignment with their existing Corporate Social Responsibility principles,” said Daryl Lee, Global CEO, Mediabrands. “This will move the industry in the right direction by establishing brand safety and brand responsibility as the common currency under which all media is transacted.”

Mediabrands’ 10 Media Responsibility Principles:

1. PROMOTE RESPECT

Seek out media partners that foster balanced, constructive discourse and respectful civil commentary. Avoid and eliminate working with media partners or platforms that create hostile conversation environments. This includes holding partners accountable if individuals, content or programming consistently confronts an individual or group of individuals based on their religion, race or sexual orientation.

2. PROTECT PEOPLE

Prioritize partners that protect people from harm. This includes requiring partners to take active steps to prevent predatory behavior against an individual or group of individuals. Require partners to flag, limit or remove content that would mislead people as to their rights or how to access public services.

3. DIVERSE AND REPRESENTATIVE

Media partners need to demonstrate that they celebrate all forms of diversity, including all genders, multicultural backgrounds, ages, sexual orientations, people with disabilities, all socio-economic groups, and faiths. That when advertising is delivered, there is conscious effort made to ensure that the ads are delivered against an audience that is representative of the diversity in the population and non-discriminatory.

4. DATA COLLECTION AND USE

That media partners and advertisers collect and use data in ways that are ethical, accountable and fair. That data is collected and used in way that complies with all applicable regulations and industry codes. That rules exist so that data is not used in advertising in a way that would inadvertently or unintentionally discriminate against an individual or group of individuals or their ability to access employment, housing, or other products and services.

5. CHILDREN’S WELLBEING

Media partners and advertisers have a shared responsibility to ensure that both regulatory and industry codes are consistently applied for protecting the welfare of children. That partners are required to demonstrate that they have the appropriate controls in place to protect children and, as necessary, age gate the delivery of advertising where necessary.

6. NO HATE SPEECH

Brands should not fund hate speech or extremist content. Avoid advertising with media outlets that fuel hatred on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, migration status, sexuality, gender or gender identity, disability or any other group characteristic. This includes not advertising on content, services, or platforms where there is speech that attempts to dehumanize a person or group of people or that promotes or features content that would incite violence or discrimination.

7. NO MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

That media investment will be directed to partners that ensure people receive quality, factual information that enables them to make well-informed decisions and not fund partners or content that spread misinformation. Advertising should not fund misinformation or disinformation. Platforms will fact check information published by high-profile and/or high reach accounts; ensure that factual information from reputable sources is published alongside false claims from said accounts; and put systems in place to stop amplification of false information. Priority areas include topics around healthcare and the environment.

8. ENFORCE POLICY

That any media partner consistently apply their own terms of use policy. That partners in a common category or vertical align on a common policy standard that outlines the expectations of those on the platforms, whether they be end-users, creators, or hosts, and that the policies be transparently enforced regardless of role, title, position, or office.

9. ADVERTISING TRANSPARENCY

That there be supply chain transparency so that advertisers know when and where they are advertising, whether this be a publisher, platform, program, or page. So that advertisers can make informed decisions that will enable compliance with these overarching principles.

10. ACCOUNTABILITY

That each party in the advertising supply chain, Advertisers, Agencies, and Publishers/Platforms will hold themselves individually accountable for adhering to these principles. That we collectively recognize that revenue from advertising is a privilege and not a right, and that there must be an open and honest dialogue with partners who fail to be accountable to these principles.

ABOUT MEDIABRANDS:
Mediabrands is the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). Mediabrands manages approximately $40 billion in marketing investment globally on behalf of its clients across its full-service agency networks UM and Initiative and through its award-winning specialty business units Reprise, MAGNA, Orion Holdings, Rapport, Healix and the IPG Media Lab. Mediabrands clients include many of the world’s most recognizable and iconic brands from a broad portfolio of industry sectors including automotive, personal finance, consumer packaged goods (CPG), pharma, health and wellness, entertainment, financial services, energy, toys and gaming, direct to consumer and e-commerce, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, fashion and beauty. The company employs more than 12,000 diverse marketing communication professionals in more than 130 countries. For more information, please visit our website: www.ipgmediabrands.com and be sure to follow us on Twitter or Instagram.

Contacts
PRESS:
Neena Koyen
SVP, Head of Global Corporate Communications
[email protected]