Omnicom Unveils New Media Agency

Omnicom Media Group today took the wraps off of its new media agency network, which has been in the works since the firm won the bulk of Procter & Gamble’s estimated $2.6 billion North America media assignment back in December.

P&G is the charter client -- although the new agency, dubbed Hearts & Science, is preparing to take on other clients, as well. 

The new shop, with a data-driven marketing focus, will be overseen by Scott Hagedorn, the former CEO of OMG media agency PHD and, for the last five years, the founder and CEO of Annalect, the group’s data and analytics platform. 

Kathleen Brookbanks, COO at sibling media agency OMD, is shifting to H&S, where she will also serve as COO. The agency is housed in downtown New York City at 7 World Trade Center with an initial staff of 175.

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The staff count will ramp up to more than 300 by the third quarter. The agency said it was recruiting talent from companies across the technology, publishing and agency sectors. 

The agency is laying plans for additional offices to open shortly in Canada and Puerto Rico, followed by a number of outposts in markets outside North America in the second half of 2016.

As with Annalect, where he led the effort to integrate data across multiple Omnicom network agencies, Hagedorn is credited with setting the vision for the new media shop, an enterprise that he describes as “the nexus between marketing science and consumer connections ... As data-driven marketing and applied audience analytics in mass media have gone from a fringe to a core practice, the industry can’t lose sight of content’s role in creating connections between brands and consumers.” 

Hagedorn added that the new agency is designed to “protect the balance and leverage the connections between information and emotion, combining data-driven planning and buying practices with orchestrated content creation, delivery and optimization across all touch points.”

Daryl Simm, CEO OMG, who was the top media executive at P&G before joining Omnicom, noted that the group now has “three distinct agency brands all focused on driving client business results.”

There’s the traditional behemoth, OMD, which he led the creation of back in the late 1990s; the communications planning expert PHD, and now the data-driven marketing focused H&S.

All three agency networks, “benefit from the full scale” of OMG’s buying, data and analytics resources, Simm said.

 

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