Omnicom CEO: Digital Media Brokers Shouldn't Reinvent the Wheel

During Omnicom’s Q2 earnings call this week, CEO John Wren talked a bit about digital, and in particular the agency holding company’s motives for forming the new OMG Digital unit. The idea, he said, is to apply offline media buying standards and principles to its digital buying business.

“We think that we can do a better job for our clients if we approach purchasing of digital — specifically digital buying in a manner similar to what we’ve done for the last decade, — from a traditional point of view,” he said.

As agency margins on digital media buys get thinner and thinner, the big holding companies that can centralize their buying processes may actually have an advantage. Wren estimated Omnicom spends $2 billion globally on media across its agencies. Don’t know how much of that is interactive media.

Wren added that while the company’s digital specialty shops — Agency.com, Organic, Tribal, DDB and Critical Mass — get the most attention, all its holdings have some digital DNA. “I’m not really aware of too many parts of our business or individual offices or country which haven’t continued to shift to where digital is becoming an increasingly important venue for us to reach the consumers that we’re looking to reach,” he said. (SeekingAlpha transcript)