Publicis Group has created a new division that combines its data and technology offerings which, it claims, will enable clients to use data to target advertising at consumers on an individual level.
The new unit, dubbed Spine, will encompass three core components; data matching of first, second and third party sources to create unique consumer IDs to better inform targeting; a cloud-based platform, PeopleCloud, that uses data to identify sources of client growth at an individual level; and a centralised data and analytics workforce of 3,500 engineers, analysts, and strategists from across Publicis Group.
Spine will be led by former global brand president of Starcom Lisa Donohue, who will report to Arthur Sadoun, chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe and Steve King, chief executive of Publicis Media.
Donohue will be succeeded in the Starcom role by John Sheehy, formerly president of global clients for Publicis Media.
Jason Kodish, global chief data scientist at DigitasLBi, will serve as chief data officer of Publicis Spine, and Steve Simpson, who runs Publicis Media’s global analytics and insight practice, will serve as president of PeopleCloud.
Sadoun: “These moves are the natural next steps in the development of our model, further strengthening capability on both the marketing and business transformation fronts and, importantly, closely interconnecting them, fuelled by all of our data expertise.”
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