What’s up at Touché!

Touché! is delighted to announce the appointment of Marilyne Alie as Managing Director of its Toronto office. Reporting directly to Samantha Kelley, recently appointed CEO of Touché!, Marilyne will spearhead strategic direction, client relationships, and team management for all Toronto-based clients. She will also lead efforts to expand the client portfolio and represent Touché! at industry level.

Marilyne Alie joined Touché! in 2015 and excelled on the Canadian Tire account among many others, leading numerous globally recognized campaigns. Her ascent to the Vice President role overseeing the Canadian Tire Corporation business along with other clients reflects her exceptional contribution over the years. After a year of maternity leave, she now takes the helm as Managing Director.

To further bolster the Toronto team, Kelley has also elevated Jean-François Bourdeau to the role of National Vice-President of Marketing Science for Touché! Canada and all OMG Montreal agencies. With a 18 years tenure at Touché!, Bourdeau has distinguished himself as a linchpin in the industry, essential in advancing the practice within the group and the wider advertising community.

Furthermore, Touché! is thrilled to welcome back Isabelle Baillargeon, previously at OMD and Hearts & Science, and proudly announces the promotion of Marc-Antoine Grenier to the position of Senior Vice-President, Strategy. In their elevated capacities, they will spearhead extensive client teams and play pivotal roles in driving internal initiatives to foster the growth of the Montreal office.

Kelley, remarked, “Our collective talent is the cornerstone of our strength at Touché! and OMG Montréal. Bolstering our management team with these executive promotions aligns seamlessly with our path to success. Providing opportunities for growth is intrinsic to our professional motivation. In an ever-evolving industry, new perspectives at the executive level invigorate our approach.”

She continued, “It's a source of immense pride to nurture talent in our dynamic media industry. These appointments not only catalyze our own growth but also propel our clients to new heights. I look forward to their continued contributions.”

Alie, Baillargeon and Grenier are reporting to Kelley whereas Bourdeau is reporting to Charles Etienne Morier, recently named COO of the group.

The Media Innovation Awards, known for recognizing canadian outstanding achievements in the realm of media and advertising, have once again shone a spotlight on Touché!’s outstanding contributions to the industry.

The agency has shortlists for four of its clients and their campaigns:

• BRP/Can-Am On-road - Every Signals Count

• Canadian Tire - 100 Years Young and Motomaster

• Préma-Québec - 1.8 Pound Book

• Quebec Milk Producers - Cute Kids to the Rescue

The MIAs celebrate media excellence and innovation and highlight the essential role that media plays in connecting with audiences.

Gala will take place on November 29 in Toronto.

See all nominees here: https://mediainnovationawards.strategyonline.ca/nominees

Touché! was also shortlisted twice at the Drum Media Awards 2023 for its Préma-Québec's The 1.8 Pound Book and Canadian Tire's Show me the Money campaigns.

Gala takes place on November 29, in London, UK.

See all details: https://thedrumawards.com/live/en/page/media-nominations

Omnicom Media Group Canada (OMG Canada) has named Samantha Kelley CEO of Touché! in Canada as well as Omnicom Media Group’s operations in Montreal, and Charles Etienne Morier, as Chief Operating Officer for those same entities.

Kelley succeeds Alain Desormiers, who had been recently serving as interim CEO of Touché! and OMG Montreal. Desormiers will maintain his involvement with the group as a strategic advisor.

“With more than a decade as a key leader of the team that has made Touché! one of Canada’s fastest-growing media agencies including becoming #1 in creativity, Samantha has driven success for a broad range of clients” says Cam Reston, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Canada.

“As President of Touché! in Montreal and Toronto, Samantha’s entrepreneurial media leadership helped clients integrate new approaches and tools into their businesses. Samantha will spearhead the definition and management of the group's organizational vision. She will drive the implementation of the agencies' business strategy, cultivate and nurture robust and genuine client relationships, and foster an inspiring and creative work environment for all employees, all with the aim of securing the company's long-term success, both for the Toronto and Montreal offices”.

Morier is being promoted into the newly established position as Chief Operating Officer of Touché! and of OMG Montreal. He will oversee the operational strategy, advocate for internal best practices among his teams, and maintain the implementation of OMG tools, technologies, and new services.

“Charles Etienne has partnered with Samantha since they joined Touché! together in 2007. He made significant contributions to the establishment of the agency's digital services and has built the structures that have supported Touché! and OMG Montreal’s tremendous growth. In a time of increasing complexity, Charles Etienne’s leadership will ensure that our teams continue to deliver leading edge value to clients as we all face tomorrow’s challenges” says Reston.

“These moves are testament to the strength and depth of talent within our organization. Touché! has always been a beacon of innovation and creativity in media. Now that Samantha and Charles Etienne are in their new roles, we look forward to writing the next great chapter in the Touché! and OMG Montreal story and work with our clients to find success within a modern media and marketing environment”, says Ralph Pardo, CEO Omnicom Media Group North America.

Kelley will report to Reston and Morier will report to Kelley,

Our Guinness St. Patrick’s Day OOH execution won two awards at Ad Club OOH Day which took place yesterday in Toronto. The campaign won in the Best Large Format and the Best Multi Platform categories.

Our strategy was rooted in the Surge and Settle moments of Guinness. We wanted to build up anticipation and excitement leading into St. Patrick’s Day. To drive this surge, we focused on leveraging large format takeover in select cities, like the Yonge Dundas Square Takeover with creative counting down to St. Patrick’s Day. We also supplemented with additional OOH in TTC networks and Elevator News to capture audiences as they were making their plans for St. Patrick’s Day.

The creative concept we developed with our OOH partners was to physically show the anticipation by showing the Guinness glass slowly fill up as St. Patrick’s Day was drawing closer and closer.

These executions were supplemented with additional reach driving channels such as TV, Social and other OOH large formats.

Touché! stood out again in international awards show by winning an award at the Internationalist’s Marketing Makes a World of Difference in New York as well as two at the M&M Global Awards in London.

At the Internationalist Awards, The 1.8 Pound Book campaign for Préma-Québec won an award for the innovative approach to the campaign as well as the highly creative deployment strategy to announce the release of a 1.8 pound book, the average weight of a premature child, in order to raise funds for the foundation.

Every year, The Internationalist highlights inspiring case studies of how brands and their marketing initiatives are making a world of difference by creating awareness, changing behaviors, and driving results for people, the planet, all living creatures... and for business.

For all details: https://marketingmakesaworldofdifference.com/

Watch the case study here: https://www.touchemedia.com/en/our-work/the-1-8-pound-book/

As for the M&M Global Awards, Touché! once again distinguished itself with two gold trophies in the Best use of Digital and Best use of Automotive categories for BRP’s Uncharted Playgrounds campaign.

M&M Global celebrates 34 years of rewarding the best work in international media and marketing. The categories focus on work in the industry from sectors ranging from finance and FMCG to automotive and sport, campaigns based around media channels, successful partnerships and communication strategies. They are open to brands, media owners, agencies and adtech companies around the world.

For all details: https://festivalofmedia.com/mmg/mm-global-awards-2023-winners

Watch the cas study here: https://www.touchemedia.com/en/our-work/uncharted-playgrounds/

Today were announced the winning cases of the prestigious Media Plan of the Year competition organized by Adweek. This award show celebrates the most creative media campaigns around the world.

Touché! once again stood out by winning two awards for the Uncharted Playgrounds campaign produced in collaboration with BRP, namely the winning campaign in the “Best Use of Insights” category as well as in the “Total Campaign less than $500,000” category. Touché! won honors in two of the competition's 28 categories.

Uncharted Playgrounds has collected more than 19 trophies in the past year, both nationally and internationally, including the Grand Prix Média at the Media Innovation Awards and Concours Idéa 2023. Several nominations are still pending.

Samantha Kelley, President of Touché! commented “It is with great pride that we see Uncharted Playgrounds recognized around the world! This is another fine testimony to the success of our business relationship with BRP. »

Discover the winning campaigns: https://www.adweek.com/media/media-plan-of-the-year-2023-these-winning-strategies-helped-brands-reach-new-markets/

See case study here : https://www.touchemedia.com/en/our-work/uncharted-playgrounds/

At Touché!, we are proud to support local media and reject Meta's recent approach to the new Bill C-18. Over the years, we've been among the leaders in Quebec and Canada in advancing the cause of local media with our clients. 

We firmly believe in the importance of a diversity of voices and in the value of local media. They play an essential role in maintaining an informed, balanced and democratic society, and they deserve our ongoing support.

That's why we believe that media agencies and advertisers have a key role to play in this situation. As major players in the industry, we have the power and responsibility to take a stand on this issue and take concrete action.

By working hand in hand with our clients, we aim to assess the importance of the issue, and the willingness of each of them to align their advertising investments with these convictions. In this way, Touché! is there to respond to the needs and socially-driven initiatives of its clients.

We demonstrated a few years ago with our client VIA Rail Canada that the business and media performance of a campaign can be equivalent, or even increased, by rebalancing the proportion of advertising dollars invested in Canadian media compared to international media. (For more details: https://www.touchemedia.com/en/news/touche-and-via-rail-canada-redesign-their-media-buying-strategy/)

In conclusion, Touché! endorse the A2C and CMDC Canadian Media Manifesto's objective of devoting 25% of digital advertising investment to support Canadian media and local press initiatives. These investments will provide additional funding to Canadian news publications, beyond what they would receive under Bill C-18.

We recognize that this is a complex issue. Please don't hesitate to contact us for an in-depth discussion. We're passionate about the subject and look forward to engage with all industry players.

For more information:

A2C: https://a2c.quebec/en/news/a2c-statement-the-online-news-act-and-the-power-of-advertisers-to-support-canadian-media

A2C: https://a2c.quebec/en/resources/mouvement-media-d-ici

CMDC: https://www.cmdc.ca/cmm

Image : Camilo Jimenez

Alain Desormiers returns as Interim Chief Executive Officer OMG Montréal and Touché! Canada. Alain steps into the role recently held by Karine Courtemanche. After 20 years occupying various roles within Omnicom Media Group (OMG), Karine Courtemanche is leaving the organization to pursue a new opportunity.

As the founding CEO of Touché!, Desormiers will be working with the recently promoted Presidents Samantha Kelley (Touché! Canada) and Charles-Étienne Morier (OMG Montreal) to assist them in creating growth, managing industry shifts and to ensure a smooth and successful transition.

“I am back without hesitation knowing that Samantha and Charles Étienne as well as the members of the management team have all the assets to maintain a prosperous future for the organization. Samantha and Charles Étienne have been part of the dream team for the past 16 years and have been key players in creating the culture that continues to deliver such great work to our clients” comments Desormiers.

In their current roles, Kelley and Morier will maintain the leadership of their management teams ensuring the continuity of the group's organizational vision and momentum, client servicing and operational strategy in the context of the perpetual transformation taking place in the media ecosystem.

Caroline Moul continues her leadership of PHD Canada, reporting to Cam Reston, CEO of OMG Canada.

Courtemanche has played a key role in the company growth over the years and in its leadership position in the market. The legacy she is most proud of is surely having succeeded in building a strong, recognized and tightly knit management team.

“Karine has been a wonderful colleague and friend over the years. I know she will be successful in all the future projects she takes on. We are lucky that Karine and Alain built such a strong team of leaders that are continuing to grow make the organization shine and maintain its reputation of excellence” says Reston.

On June 8, the fourth edition of the IDÉA Awards was held, recognizing the best advertising campaigns in Quebec in six major disciplines, including media.

Touché! had six campaigns nominated, and came out on top, including the Media Grand Prix for BRP's Unchartered Playgrounds campaign. This case also won gold in the Digital category.

Touché! also won five silver and three bronze awards for its clients Préma-Québec, Exceldor, Les Producteurs de lait du Québec, BRP, VIA Rail and Tourisme Montréal.

On Thursday June 1rst in London, the Festival of Media awards ceremony was held, celebrating the best in media campaigns from around the world. Touché! picked up one silver and two bronzes for its clients HSBC and BRP while PHD won three gold for its client Dove.

Touché! won a Silver in the Best use of Social Media category for BRP’s Unchartered Playgrounds campaign. The campaign also won Best of Show at Prix IDEA and Gold in the media categories at the Drums Marketing Awards last week.

Touché! also won two bronzes for its HSBC campaign Punch Above the Weight in the Best Use of Data and Best Use of Real-time Marketing categories.

“I am very proud to see our PHD and Touché! teams and clients being celebrated on an international stage, in such key media categories," said Karine Courtemanche, CEO of PHD and Touché! Canada. "Measuring our work with the best in the world is a powerful learning lever and a huge team pride builder."

On the PHD side, Dove’s Toxic influence campaign won gold in the Led by Cause category. The advertiser set out to improve the self-esteem of 3.5 million Canadian girls, and to end toxic beauty advice on social media. With that in mind we created a campaign that used deepfake technology to put the messages of toxic beauty advice in the mouths of parents. Sparking an international debate about how parents should be teaching their children to detox their feeds.

Moreover, Dove’s Keep the grey campaign won gold in Local Execution of a Global Brand and Brand Bravery categories. For this campaign, Dove took a stand against workplace ageism when they saw Canadian newscaster Lisa LaFlamme being released from her duties because of her grey hair. Turning their iconic logo grey, they asked women to follow suit and turn their profile pictures to greyscale to support women being aged out of the workplace.

Touché! and its clients BRP, Canadian Tire, Préma-Québec, HSBC and the Quebec Milk Producers are nominated 12 times at prestigious international Festival of Media.

BRP's Uncharted Playgrounds campaign received five nominations in the Digital, Local Campaign, Communication Strategy, Engagement and Social Media categories.

HSBC's Punch Above the Weigh campaign collected two nominations in the Data and Real-Time Marketing categories.

Canadian Tire’s Show me the Money campaign was nominated in the Event and Social Media categories.

BRP's Every Signal Count campaign received one nomination in the Return on Investment category.

Quebec Milk Producers’ Cute Kids to the Rescue campaign was nominated in the Integrated Campaign category.

Finally, Préma-Québec's The 1.8 Pound Book campaign was nominated in the Integrated Campaign category.

The full shortlisted cases can be found here : https://festivalofmedia.com/fomg/festival-of-media-global-2023-shortlist-2

Winners will be announced on June 1st.

Touché! is proud to announce the appointment of Samantha Kelley as President of Touché! Canada. For his part, Charles Etienne Morier becomes President of the Montreal branch of Omnicom Media Group (OMG Montreal).

Reporting to Karine Courtemanche, CEO of Touché! Canada, PHD Canada and OMG Montreal, Kelley will work to promote Touché! at the local, national, and international level in creativity and innovation while more specifically leading the Toronto office.

Kelley joined Touché! in 2007. It’s while working on the account of Loblaws Canada that she really fell in love with the fast pace and constant evolution of retail. Samantha therefore made it her specialty and spent the next fifteen years on accounts such as Sport Chek, Mark's, Canadian Tire and Canada Post.

Her hard work opened the door to a position as Vice-President in strategy, then General Manager of Touché! Toronto before being named President of the agency in Canada. Samantha now divides her time between Toronto and Montreal.

Kelley comments: “I have a long love affair with Touché!. It is both a great honour and a great responsibility to take the reins of this great agency in Canada. Touché! has built over time a reputation as an innovative agency and I intend to maintain and amplify it!”

For his part, also reporting to Karine Courtemanche, Charles Etienne takes the reins of OMG Montreal as President. He will be responsible for defining and managing the group's organizational vision and operational strategy while promoting internal best practices for his teams and ensuring the deployment of OMG tools and new services.

Morier has also arrived at Touché! in 2007 where he contributed to creating the agency's digital offer and set up the SEM team. Charles Etienne's work has been recognized many times by the industry both in Canada and internationally. In 2018, Charles Etienne was appointed Senior Vice President of Operations for OMG Montreal, a role in which he ensures that the best processes and practices were put in place to generate success for the team and its clients and now becomes President.

Morier comments: “Over the past few years, I have had the chance to learn a lot through my journey within the group, by occupying several roles, but above all by being surrounded by the most talented people in the industry. Today, I am honoured to take on this role and grateful for the chance to guide our teams to create innovative new solutions and services that will address the disruptive forces of change that have become endemic to our industry. With the strength of OMG, the talent and expertise of our teams who are an integral part of our success, a unique culture and clients who trust us, we certainly have all the tools to enable us to create the future of the company.”

“We have a long tradition of growing our talent internally. It is therefore with pride that we welcome this new generation of presidents. Samantha and Charles Etienne represent the future of the media discipline. They lead our teams with passion, innovation and a deep sense of ethics. I could not be better surrounded for the growth of our agencies in Quebec and Canada.”, comments Karine Courtemanche.

For the first time in its history, Touché! is nominated in the Media Agency category at the prestigious Global Agency of the Year Awards by Campaign.

Campaign’s Global Agency of the Year competition is like no other awards show. Categories recognise talent, creativity, and effectiveness, but also consider a range of additional measures, such as new business performance, thought-leadership, innovation, culture, and values, to uncover the best all-round performers around the globe.

For the media category, agencies had to submit an application where the judges evaluated the following seven criteria:

• Intro to agency

• Client and work

• Business performance

• Leadership

• Talent

• Contribution

• Covid 19

This year, more than 123 companies from 21 countries entered Campaign’s fourth Global Agency of the Year Awards, which will award prizes across 34 categories this year.

Winners will be revealed in a virtual ceremony in May.

Click here to see the Global Agency of the Year 2023 shortlists in full.

After a successful year in 2022 for new business, Touché! continues its growth in the Canadian marketplace by pursuing its collaboration with Tourism Montreal and expanding its work with Metro inc. to include the English Canada in their duties.

Following a rigorous RFP and review process, Tourism Montreal has chosen to continue its collaboration with its media agency of the past ten years: Touché!. The agency will continue its work with Tourism Montreal and its various partners to promote Montreal as a destination of choice for Canadians, Americans and Europeans. Touché! will be responsible for the overall media strategy, planning, media buying and performance measurement.

"This is a pivotal time for Tourism Montreal as we navigate a new reality for global travelers. Touché! is the partner of choice to support us in our performance-driven ambition. Their in-depth knowledge of the tourism industry and their experienced team in media strategy and analytics make Touché! an essential ally for Tourism Montreal." explains Sylvie Charette, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Montreal. 

2022 will finally have been a great year for tourism in Montreal, despite the challenges. The teams are already working on preparing the 2023 summer campaigns, with the development of several new markets, such as Western Canada and the United States.

Touché! has also extended the scope of work with its long-time client METRO Inc. to now include the Ontario Market. Touché! now acts as the Agency of Record for all METRO banners in Quebec and Ontario. The agency is responsible for media strategy, planning and buying for traditional and digital placements for awareness and consideration. Both Toronto and Montreal offices work on the account.

"We are very proud to continue the adventure with Tourism Montreal and expand our scope with Metro", adds Karine Courtemanche, Chief Executive Officer at Touché!. "We look forward to continuing putting our expertise and creativity to work for our clients to drive business success."

Last night at the Media Innovation Awards, Touché! was once again recognized as the best agency in media creativity and the most awarded in the country.

The agency gatherered more than 14 awards in 13 categories, including the Best of Show awarded to the campaign of the year for BRP-X Uncharted Playgrounds.

Unchartered Playgrounds also won three other gold trophies in the Consumer Engagement, Automotive and Website/Microsite categories.

Exceldor, Atmosphere, Canadian Tire, HSBC and Can-Am Off-Road also received trophies during the ceremony.

For all the details: https://mediainnovationawards.strategyonline.ca/Winners/Winner/2022

New forward-looking branding

After 27 years of award-winning campaigns and valuable collaboration, Touché! wanted to raise the profile of everything it has worked to build: a solid leadership team, talented experts who constantly hone their skills, a roster of some 40 exciting clients, over 450 national and international industry awards, and the ability to masterfully harness the combined power of data and creativity. 

Against the backdrop of a constantly shifting media landscape, Touché! is also looking more than ever toward the future. For this reason, the agency decided to refresh its branding with the help of lg2 and today is unveiling a new, modernized brand identity focused on growth, acceleration and creativity.

 "Just like a person, the face of a brand changes as it grows. We've come a long way since Touché!'s first visual identity, whose explosion-like design illustrated our initial goal of conquest and impact, both for our start-up and for our clients. Some 27 years and several iterations later, the new face we're showing the world is a stark contrast: established, fresh and forward-looking. It is also built around precision and sophistication—the new hallmarks of our service offering—and our ever-present ambition to push the limits of possibilities and help our people and our clients grow. Long live Touché!"

-      Alain Desormiers, Founder, Touché!

Redefining creativity to drive business success of its clients

The new branding emphasizes the agency's promise to all of its clients every day: that it will redefine media creativity and innovation to produce meaningful business results and game-changing campaigns that strike a chord with people. Touché!'s recipe for success is simple: a corporate vision that reflects today's media realities and anticipates tomorrow's possibilities, fueled by data and driven by creativity.

At Touché!, this same promise also extends to the agency's talent. That's why the agency always seeks out new challenges, new expertise, new training, new partnerships and anything else employees need to build a successful career.

Discover more at www.touchemedia.com

"Now, more than ever, Touché! is looking toward the future and preparing for the challenges of tomorrow. We're integrating cutting-edge technology to redefine the concept of media creativity and meet the complex challenges of data and e-commerce that don't fit neatly into traditional media planning models. We want our branding to reflect our focus on the future and the growth that has defined our organization since the very beginning."

-      Karine Courtemanche, CEO, Touché!

Strategic rebranding expertise

Touché!'s unique approach to media—fueled by data and driven by creativity—earned it an unrivalled reputation in the industry. However, its brand ecosystem was not up to date with its current service offering. That's why Touché! hired creative agency LG2 to refresh its brand identity and make it reflect Touché!'s considerable stature.

Ready to tackle the challenges of tomorrow

For the rebranding exercise, LG2 reimagined all of Touché!'s touchpoints using a multidisciplinary approach that combines design and digital experience. Two major transformations came out of this rethink: the brand platform and the revamp of its digital platform, which now offer an overview of all of the agency's expertise, specialties and top employer brand. The transformation reflects the agency's new reality and highlights its key advantages over the competition, namely its solid skills, technological tools, entrepreneurial spirit, creative positioning and talented experts.

For a 12th consecutive year, Touché! is one of the finalists in the Media Agency of the Year award by Strategy.

This category puts a spotlight on media agencies that have demonstrated unique, successful tactics and smart integration of media channels. Each applicant was required to submit three campaigns they felt highlighted this criteria, and their bodies of work were evaluated by a jury of nine industry experts from brands, media companies, consultancies and fellow media agencies.

After two years of virtual events, Agency of the Year will be returning to an in-person gala for 2022, taking place on Nov. 1 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

For more details: https://strategyonline.ca/2022/09/08/agency-of-the-year-2022-shortlists-media/

Source : Strategy

Photo : Strategy

Karine, CEO of Touché!, has been selected as a member of the jury for the Festival of Media Awards 2022.

Along with the other 24 judges, she will evaluate and choose the best North American campaigns of the year.

The results will be announced on December 8.

Hosted in May, the 16th iteration of the Festival of Media Global Awards recognized the best campaigns in the media industry.

Touché! won a gold for its Bugs Out! campaign for its Wilson client in the prestigious Best Use of Data & Insight category.

In this campaign, Wilson and Touché! built a solid data ecosystem that could predict insect invasions in Canada. With a well-integrated partnership with the Weather Network, a prospecting strategy was developed, which connected to multiple data points and delivered a customized message to each Canadians, based on the level of infestation risk in their neighborhood.

Wilson is in the top 100 most awarded campaign in the world, according to WARC Media 100.

Touché! also won a silver in the Best Use of Digital Media – Web category for the campaign Search Beats Global Supply Crisis for BRP/Sea-Doo, as well as a bronze for its Camping Rituals campaign for FGL Sports/Atmosphère client in the Best Campaign for a Local Brand category.

With these 3 awards, Touché! is the most awarded Canadian agency of this year’s Festival of Media.

In a new analysis of global media agency groups from leading research and advisory firm Forrester, Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) received the highest possible scores in the retail media, commerce media, intelligence and insights, and optimization criteria; as well as in the operations and innovation roadmap criteria.  

The Forrester Wave™: Global Media Management Services analyzes the seven most significant global media management service providers against a 19-criterion evaluation across three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence. Designed to help CMO professionals select the right provider for their needs, the report assesses the media groups under four designations: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers.   

With the highest possible scores in six criteria, and with the highest score in the current offering category, Omnicom Media Group was one of only two providers among the seven evaluated to earn designation as a "Leader" in the report. 

Describing OMG as "a good fit for advertisers that require bespoke, technology-literate, global media teams" the report also noted that "… the agency scales consumer empathy and understanding into quantifiable attention metrics against which advertisers can plan, buy, and measure.  To achieve this vision, the company deploys its Omni audience planning portal to power better audience, client, and employee experiences."

The report also states that "OMG's strength lies in initiatives to innovate its Omni portal, such as customized client workflow integrations, audience data integrations; marketing automation partnerships with Google; and efforts to unite media, e-commerce, and shopper tactics."

This finding is borne out by a steady drumbeat of  first-mover product and partnership  announcements from OMG in 2022, including a multi-year agreement with Affinity Solutions to integrate retailer purchase transactions into Omni; an enterprise-wide  partnership with Firework, the world's largest livestream commerce and shoppable video platform, to  deliver livestream shopping solutions directly to Omnicom clients' websites; the industry's first programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens; and the Supply Chain IQ Score, which gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory-in-transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real time.

Most recently, OMG dominated the news cycle at last month's  Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, announcing a series of first mover strategic partnerships with retail media networks including Walmart Connect,  Instacart, and Kroger Precision Marketing. 

"As the only agency group to have earned the highest possible score in all three of the criteria that we believe best represent the future of media investment and management - retail media, commerce media, and intelligence & insights - and as a group that also received the highest possible scores in two criteria that we think are critical differentiators in selecting an agency partner –operations and innovation road map – OMG is clearly a leader in today's marketplace," says OMG CEO Florian Adamski. "More importantly, as we continue to expand our capabilities and automate our infrastructure, and to build new products and partnerships, we are assuring that we and our clients will remain leaders -   today, tomorrow and beyond."

Receiving Forrester's  designation as a "Leader" is the latest good news for OMG, which last month  saw its largest agency, OMD Worldwide, take Media Network of the Year honors at the Cannes Lions festival; while PHD was awarded the $500 million  Restaurant Brands International (RBI) business, which includes the  Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Horton's chains.