via Digiday
Omnicom today will unveil a collaboration with Google as it continues its string of multi-partner initiatives and partnerships announced at CES 24 to advance the planning and measurement of influencers and creator channels, Digiday has learned. This follows a partnership with TikTok Omnicom announced yesterday at CES.
This initiative revolves around a first-to-market, generative AI-assisted global effort to more precisely discover YouTube influencers and creators as well as optimize YouTube creator video performance for Omnicom clients. The collaboration allows Omnicom’s “Omni” open operating system to fuse data between Omni’s and Google’s audiences and is expected to be fully operational in Q1.
As Kevin Blazaitis, head of Omnicom Media Group’s influencer practice explained, Omni audience data is translated into YouTube audience data and mapped to YouTube creator audiences, creating a sort of “punch card” that enables planners within the influencer practice to recreate brand-specific audiences within YouTube based on organic followings relevant to Omni’s 10,000 or so audience attributes.
With the audience fusion arrangement with Google/YouTube, “We’re not selecting influencers based on just the number and the count and the metadata that’s available — we’re going beyond that, to look at who are the audiences following those influencers,” said Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s North American head of activation.
Vital to this arrangement is getting Omni and Google’s data troves to play nicely together, said Clarissa Season, chief experience officer with Annalect, which manages Omni. “We’ve created a fusion mechanism where we’ve identified which audience attributes in [YouTube’s] taxonomy and our taxonomy match up,” she said. “By having this consistent audience definition, we’re able to get much richer insights. We’re able to open up greater inventory for our audience that we may not have been aware of before.”
From a client POV, Melissa Wisehart, PHD’s U.S. chief media officer, said this arrangement brings creator considerations much more up-funnel in the strategic planning process. For example, a CPG client might be looking to connect with esports enthusiasts.
“Now, instead of going out to market in a more manual, archaic way, this solution brings it back to us and says, OK, within this centralized taxonomy, here’s the top influencers regardless of what content they might be talking about, and here’s the audiences that are connecting with them,” said Wisehart. “It allows you to really bring those influencers upfront in the process, maybe develop a custom content partnership with them, and then apply that all the way through implementation, from an audience standpoint.”
Kim Larson, YouTube’s global head of creators, said the collaboration will help media agencies “unlock the potential of our vibrant creator ecosystem. [The OMG influencer practice’s] dedication to data-driven creator partnerships, coupled with paid media and measurement expertise, meets a strong market need.” — Michael Bürgi