Accenture Makes Its Move Into Media Planning & Buying

Consulting giant Accenture is increasing its focus and investment in the programmatic in-housing and media planning and buying arena with a new offering.

Accenture Interactive Programmatic Services includes three core services: programmatic consulting and in-housing; media strategy, planning and activation; and ad tech implementation and support.

Accenture Interactive’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Michael Buckley, told B&T the new offering is in response to clients telling the consultancy that they have lost trust in the current media buying system.

“We will be enabling clients to design, build and staff in-house trading desk capabilities or run full-service global digital media campaigns,” he said.

However, Buckley refused to disclose which local clients Accenture is working with in this space.

Accenture has recently worked with Foxtel in the media buying and planning space, but CMO Andy Lark told B&T that hasn’t been the case since he joined the pay TV company in January.

Accenture Interactive is collaborating with Accenture Operations to help drive efficiencies and transparency in media investment for worldwide brands such as HP, Melia Hotels and Radisson Hotel Group, with the latter appointing the consultancy as its global digital agency of record.

The move is all part of Accenture’s grand plan to provide an end-to-end experience for clients, having acquired creative agency The Monkeys and design firm Maud more than a year ago.

Brian Whipple, global CEO of Accenture Interactive, said clients have been asking the company to help them drive greater efficiencies with their programmatic media spend, specifically digital media.

“Consistent with our mission to create, build and run the best customer experiences on the planet, we are enhancing Accenture Interactive Programmatic Services to complement our full suite of experience services,” he said.

“We are already focused on all the pieces that are related to media placement, so it was a natural extension for us to help our clients deliver more hyper-relevant customer experiences through digital media.”

Scott Tieman, global lead of programmatic services at Accenture Interactive, said advertisers are reacting to the changing media landscape and are wanting to move beyond the status quo and take back control of their media capability.

“We believe we can help our clients do things differently. Accenture Interactive has an offering that is highly differentiated in the market, and is built on a foundation of trust and transparency,” he said.

“We have the ability to leverage Accenture’s global footprint and capabilities to integrate strategy, creative, data, technology, and analytics together to drive superior results – a clear advantage for our clients.”

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