Trading Places: Glam's Jacobs To Head Omnicom's Accuen

Josh-Jacobs

Omnicom Media Group has appointed Josh Jacobs to the new position of president, Accuen, the company's year-old digital platform trading desk based in Chicago.  

Jacobs will be responsible for planning and executing the strategy for Omnicom's digital media trading business, growing Accuen's client roster and developing new product offerings, the company said. Jacobs will also be tasked with expanding the Accuen team, adding staffers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. By year's end, the Accuen staff is expected to total around 85, from the current 70.

Jacobs will report to Scott Hagedorn, CEO of OMG's Annalect Group, a new analytics unit formed last year to manage and analyze the reams of data pouring into OMG from its various operating units, including media shops OMD and PHD.

Currently, OMG operations combined place more than $2 billion in digital buys each year.

Annalect houses more than 400 data, digital and analytic specialists worldwide in various areas, including media analytics, business intelligence, tools and dashboard systems, econometric modeling, search and demand-side trading.

The initial focus has been on digital media data, but Annalect will ultimately manage data for all media handled by OMG, the company has indicated. It will also link audience composition and behavioral data across both offline and online channels in a bid to develop richer cross-platform audience profiles and insights, which in turn should lead to more efficient media planning and buying.

"In the year since its launch, Accuen has become a critical component of our clients' media strategies, delivering efficiencies, control and insights that reduce cost per lead and cost per acquisition, and increase sales," stated Hagedorn.

"Going into year two, we needed an aggressive leader and proven change agent to take Accuen to the next level in terms of offer and client uptake," he added, referring to Jacobs.

Most recently, Jacobs was senior vice president, ad products and marketing at Glam Media. He is credited with developing the GlamAdapt ad platform during his tenure there. Earlier, Jacobs was vice president and general manager of marketing technology at Yahoo.

Commenting on his new role, Jacobs stated: "The future of advertising is being defined in digital markets today, and leveraging the global scale of Omnicom, we have an opportunity to reset expectations and redefine media buying industry-wide."

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