• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 31, 2007

OMD DIGITAL

Orchestral, but not in the Dark, the Agency Takes a Big Step Forward

Supporting the pioneers. Putting their (client's) money where their mouth is. Shaking-up their corporate structure to usher in a new age of advertising. It's things like this that make it impossible not to recognize Omnicom's OMD Digital.

In a year in which video moved to the fore, OMD used it best. "These guys have worked in the biggest way to support video, and establish it as standard practice for clients," said Matt Wasserlauf, CEO of online video ad network and syndicator Broadband Enterprises, which conducted its first-ever upfront presentation this summer with the help of OMD.

For Cube Fabulous, a humorous makeover series made exclusively for the Web, OMD brought in AOL. And the deal paid off: In its third season, Fabulous' 16 5-to-7-minute episodes were streamed 200 million times by some 25 million unique users.

Then, for The Fantastic Two - a Web series that chronicles a pair of sports fanatics and their fantasy football wars - OMD wrangled none other than McDonald's. Since the series debuted this fall, it has so far been streamed 30 million times.

Enabling it to put its creative in the all the right places, this past summer, Omnicom rolled its digital expertise into the single unit, giving it oversight over $2 billion in worldwide media spending.

Post-restructuring, the current digital units at both of its media/planning agencies - OMD and PHD - continue to provide digital media services to their respective clients. OMD Digital is now coordinating digital media buying globally to give Omnicom clients greater negotiating leverage.

Omnicom Media Group is presently developing a proprietary media intelligence platform to track consumers' interaction with digital advertising in order to provide better behavioral and targeting insights.