Billy (not his genuine name) is the type of senior online marketer who typically has a hot take for every celebration. Brand name security? He'll unwind the commercial complex behind it. Openness? Buckle up; he'll spill everything.
When it comes to Interpublic Group's Acxiom, Billy's take is notably missing out on. It's not since he's uninformed; he simply does not believe IPG has actually used enough solutions to form a viewpoint worth having.
“It [Acxiom] was constantly much more powerful in the U.S. compared to Europe in regards to the IDs at its disposal, so there wasn't truly enough we might've made with them,” stated Billy, who is among IPG's customers. “And even then, it was us promoting it, not them [IPG]”
That unvarnished view cuts through the sound surrounding IPG's information organization given that Omnicom revealed strategies to get it and the rest of the group. The chatter positions as a focal point of the so-called “holdco of the future.” Whether it lives up to the buzz is an entire other story.
Acxiom, as it ends up, is anything however basic.
When IPG initially revealed its intent to acquire Acxiom Marketing Services in July 2018, it was a big gamble, particularly as the $2.3 billion price was more than a quarter of the business's then-market capitalization ($7 to 8 billion).
Acxiom's purchase was pitched as a tactical transfer to boost IPG's abilities in data-driven marketing and customized marketing, therefore evangelized as a way of preserving such practices, even as laws like the EU's General Data Protection Regulations entered force.
One year after its preliminary statement, IPG's executive group credited the acquisition with drawing in brand-new customers, consisting of those from the vehicle and monetary tech sectors, to the holding business. Speaking at the time, Philippe Krakowsky– then CEO of IPG Mediabrands and proposed COO of a merged IPG and Omnicom– declared it brought “proficiency and trustworthiness” in the middle of increased analysis over marketers' usage of customers' information.
Financiers' issues over Acxiom
The list below year, after Google verified that it would sign up with Apple in retiring the usage of third-party cookies in its web internet browser, Chrome, Wall Street financiers were still questioning the knowledge of such a purchase.
Would not other holding business desire to desert Acxiom now that it was under the stewardship of one of their fiercest competitors? This fate befell other advertisement tech scions after taking holding business financial investment. Supporters of the offer firmly insisted not, in addition declaring they were “constructing methods to work around” internet browsers' third-party cookie limitations when talking to financiers.
This view was not widely held, with Digiday's advertisement tech specialists revealing issue about framing the business as a first-party information possession. In addition, Adstra's continuous legal case versus IPG duo Acxiom and Kinesso mean unstable structures for Acxiom's claims to first-party information qualifications.
Isn't it still simply third-party information?
Previous IPG experts informed Digiday they were puzzled about why executives there promoted purchasing (what lots of considered) a third-party information brokerage when laws such as GDPR were being carried out.
