• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 5, 2015

Omnicom has just hired former Merkle GM of Digital Media Megan Pagliuca to head up the agency's trading desk, Accuen. She replaces Josh Jacobs, who left in March and ended up as president of Kik Services, where he oversees new business development.

Much has been said of late regarding the trend toward the creation of brand-side trading desks -- which, in a nutshell, appears to be happening because brands simply don't trust agencies to fully disclose all of the machinations involved in the process. 

Pagliuca isn't really a fan of the trend and likens the move to brands simply shifting their media spend from agencies to DSPs.

Explaining her mindset, Pagliuca says: “While I applaud marketers for pushing back, moving their services layer to buying platforms is not necessarily in their best interest, either. Marketers should either build a true in-house capability or leverage a service provider that gives them the transparency and accountability that they require -- either way, marketers should demand cost transparency and clarity in their data usage."

So what's it going to be? In-agency or in-house? While not exactly the same, this whole debate sounds very similar to the debate we had back in the day over whether or not media shops had any advantage over in-house agency media departments. And on that front, I'm still not sure there is a clear answer.

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