Omnicom Media Group, the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. today announced the launch of its third agency network, which is called Hearts & Science.
Designed to inform brand strategies with real-time insights, Hearts & Science is a data-driven marketing agency with expert media planning and buying capabilities, among other services that include shopper marketing, marketing innovation and content activation.
The new netwok approach is rooted in the fact that marketers seeking business advantage in a world of personalized digital marketing, where CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and addressable channels converge, and decisions must be made in real time to aggregate effective reach and deliver the right message at the right time.
Scott Hagedorn at the head and P&G the first client
Hearts & Science opens its North America based operation this month with Procter & Gamble as its firs client, and Scott Hagedorn at the head in the CEO spot.
Kathleen Brookbanks, who joins the new agency from sister shop OMD, has been appointed as Hearts & Science Chief Operating Officer.
Slavi Samardzija succeeds Hagedorn in the responsibility as Global CEO and Erin Matts takes the reins as North American CEO at Annalect.
Samardzija and Matts move into their new roles from their former positions of Chief Analytics Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively in the same agency.
The new network will be located at 7 World Trade Center (New York) with a first team composed by 175 people, a number that is expected to reach the 300 mark by the beginning of Q3. Additional offices will open starting shortly with Canada and Puerto Rico and there are plana to enter some other of key markets outside of North America in the second half of 2016.
Additional executive hires, recruited from leading companies across the technology, publishing and agency industries, will be announced in the coming weeks.
A new network idea born while at Annalect
Hagedorn takes the helm at Hearts & Science following five years working as the founding CEO of Annalect.
While leading the effort to integrate data across multiple Omnicom network agencies, Hagedorn began crafting the vision for Hearts & Science, an enterprise that he describes as “the nexus between marketing science and consumer connections.”
“As data-driven marketing and applied audience analytics in mass media have gone from a fringe to a core practice, the industry can’t lose sight of content’s role in creating connections between brands and consumers,” Hagedorn says. “Hearts & Science has been designed to protect the balance and leverage the connections between information and emotion, combining data-driven planning and buying practices with orchestrated content creation, delivery and optimization across all touch points.”
“With the addition of Hearts & Science, Omnicom Media Group has three distinct agency brands all focused on driving client business results,” says Daryl Simm, CEO, Omnicom Media Group. “OMD is the world’s largest and most creatively awarded media agency; PHD is the global leader in communications planning; Hearts & Science will be highly focused on data driven marketing. All three agency networks benefit from the full scale of Omnicom Media Group’s activation and buying resources and our industry-leading Annalect data and analytics platform.”
