January 25, 2023
GroupM Launches Multicultural Marketplace
- by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, July 6, 2020
WPP media investment group GroupM has announced the launch of The GroupM Multicultural Marketplace in the U.S.
The marketplace, now live with 300 publishers, comprises a comprehensive and growing list of Black and Hispanic owned and focused publishers that create, curate and distribute content specifically for these audiences.
According to the agency the main idea is to provide an “available-now, diverse and delivery-accountable marketplace media offering.” The firm believes that all of its clients will be participating over the next six to 18 months.
Gonzalo del Fa, President of GroupM Multicultural said the Marketplace will allow clients to plan and buy available media in an automated way, including programmatically, directly and at scale. “These publishers provide essential voices and content to the Black and Hispanic communities and society and maintain the overall diversity health of the media marketplace,” he stated.
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The marketplace is determined by GroupM’s proprietary eligibility criteria, including the company’s brand safety guidelines, an area where the firm is considered a leading innovator. Other considerations include traffic and targeting capabilities, content relevancy and recency, privacy policies, ad rendering, clutter and ownership.
This new marketplace expands and scales existing company efforts in support of multicultural owned and focused media and journalism. Earlier this year, for example, Mindshare created its ‘Inclusion’ PMP series comprised of private marketplaces, starting with the LGBTQ Community and soon-to-be announced Black Community.
In June, GroupM became the first holding company to join TripleLift’s “Help Journalism” programmatic initiative, which drives clients’ ad dollars to local news publishers.
And GroupM isn’t the only agency rolling out new marketplaces for multicultural media. Havas Media Group has announced a similar marketplace designed as global after initially rolling out in the U.S.
I think this is a huge step backwards.
1. If you don't show sales results from the get-go, it is a slam dunk that other publishers will then just say "you see, you are buying them because they are minorities, you need us for real scale and results" and then you wind up in the state where US Hispanic media was 20 years ago (and Black media is still today) token expenditures to check THAT box. So, essentially, you create a ghetto.
2. For many publishers who probably don't deserve to live (and there is always the bottom 25% of everything) you just extended their useless lives by assuring them of some token money.
3. Finally, if you buy any group of media as a political buy, the media you buy never grow and improve. It happens a lot in public expenditures. For example, the GMCVB had a set number of political buys that HAD to be included in the budget because of political pressure. As a result, part of the budget was totally wasted but, worse, the media that sucked from that particular faucet never grew as media and remained mediocre.