Media Buying Briefing: CourtAvenue’s new president looks to grow, integrate and find M&A targets

Khabie said he had come across Freye competitively in pitches and lost a few to her, which made him realize he wanted her on the team. “When you lose against someone’s pitches too many times, you have to figure a way to hire them,” quipped Khabie, who also worked with Freye at Digitaria more than a decade ago. “During her time at R/GA, I had a chance to compete against her, and she was just an amazing force, the way she invigorated her team. She understands where and how to grow strategic relationships.”

And that’s going to be part of her job at CA — focusing her efforts on continuing the integration of CourtAvenue’s various assets, which include social agency Modifly, Ukrainian bot firm BotsCrew as well as several AI tools and platforms the group has built.

“What I’m seeing across the industry is a clear move away from these generalist networks and holdcos, as clients are turning towards specialty partners, but like, with a twist,” said Freye, who has yet to make the rounds with CA’s client roster. “CMOS want these deep experts who understand their category, who understand their problem, and who understand the specific growth levers that matter. But at the same time, they don’t want this chaos. Brands are consolidating rosters, but they really are increasing spend on partners who can integrate brand, media, commerce, AI and technology into a single system.”

“We’re no longer doing campaigns — we’re doing digital experiences,” added Khabie. “We’re no longer running TV commercials — we’re making AI generated commercials. It’s a result of technology and is a core part of what we do. We need people that really understand the technology component of it, and Robyn is very strong there with her experience at R/GA and then at Stagwell.” 

Freye said an advantage she starts out with at CourtAvenue is a happy client base — something not every holdco can claim to have. She noted that CA’s NPS scores (Net Promoter Scores, a measure of marketers’ satisfaction levels with their agencies) are just below the 90 mark, where industry norms are in the 60s range, she said. 

“I’m coming into a situation where the clients are the happiest that I’ve ever seen,” said Freye. “You don’t get NPS scores like that from one great campaign. You get it from standing up a model that succeeds as an advisor and a reliable executor for clients at every single point.”

Which, she said, should lead to more growth of an organic nature. But another part of growth will come from finding the right businesses to acquire that can help the mini-holdco (its leaders like to say without the baggage) expand its offerings. Khabie said areas of expansion could include, but aren’t limited to, data expertise in the form of customer data platforms. 

“Because if you’re going to win in AI — which is where we want to win; we want to be viewed as an agency that lives and breathes in an AI world —you have to win with data,” said Khabie, who also pointed to customer experience expertise or CRM as potential acquisitive targets.

Although clients haven’t met Freye, what she’s talking about seems to mesh with their goals.

“I’m hopeful that [Freye] is going to help connect the dots across the funnel for us in a way that levels everything up in terms of access to partners, access to efficiency and access to inventory,” said Laura Gustafson, senior director of consumer brand experience, U.S. pet health at animal health firm Elanco, which grew its remit with CourtAvenue from small test work into full-funnel AOR. “You’re not hiring an agency, you’re hiring a consultant group who gets really curious about your business, but has all of the trappings of a really good agency.”

A CPG client, who declined to speak for attribution, said they use CourtAvenue to solve problems they can’t figure out internally. “When I call Michael [Stich] and I use their team, it’s usually around problems that I don’t understand,” said the exec. “It tends to be broad topics that I know are are very important to my business but am in the nascent stages of understanding.” 

The exec pointed to CA’s efforts to help the brand adapt its search strategy to ensure mentions in LLM searches. “I need to have an end to end solution — that’s why I call them.” 

Steve Boehler, who runs consultancy Mercer Island Group, said it’s these kinds of competitors to holdcos that present a challenge to the giants. “The large holdco drive towards global, giant clients has created an opportunity for smaller Holdcos and indies to stand out to mid market clients,” said Boehler. “There’s clearly an opportunity for young holdcos like CourtAvenue to meet the needs of many mid market clients.”

Color by numbers

Consumers generally aren’t the happiest at this point in time, a year into a presidency that has upended so many norms, and a tech world that’s exploding norms thanks to AI. Consumer research firm Disqo released its Consumer Trends Report, whose bottom line shows that people aren’t pulling back from media, but rather are paying closer attention to what feels worth their time. 

Some of the report’s findings:

• 55% of consumers feel negative about the direction of the world in 2026, but they’re more optimistic when looking ahead five years. 
• TV (49%) and social media (48%) are the most likely channels to drive purchase, but they are also perceived as the most disruptive.
• 61% say personal experience shapes how they feel about a brand, but advertising still plays an influential role by setting expectations and reinforcing trust across the journey.
• 53% of consumers start product research on search engines, while 38% rely on reviews and 29% turn to social media, highlighting how ads, discovery and validation can work together.
• 40% of consumers feel neutral about influencer advertising, — 27% view it positively and 33% view it negatively. 
• 35% of consumers feel neutral about brands using AI in advertising, with positive (30%) and negative (35%) sentiment nearly evenly split. 

Takeoff & landing

• Dentsu’s iProspect renewed its search engine advertising duties with Siemens in 150 countries, including key markets such as the United States, South Korea, and China. The decision follows a review by the consumer tech firm.  
• Stagwell launched an incubator fund it calls Quarter Creek Ventures, to fund and scale opportunities across ad0tech and AI. It plans to provide capital, expertise, and market access to its recipients.
• Independent social agency Born Social landed social media AOR duties in the U.S. for camera maker Nikon. 
• Harmelin Media, which is based in Philadelphia, won digital media AOR duties for Stihl outdoor equipment, including specific work for its battery technology.   
• Personnel moves: Dept hired Michael Lanyon as CTO for the Americas, coming over from Critical Mass. Lanyon will expand Dept’s Adobe partnership across the region … Digital media shop Coegi hired Chris Kotyck as evp of digital operations, based in Toronto. He comes from Monks Canada where he led media operations. 

Direct quote

“Even in my GroupM days, we were starting to argue that scale isn’t everything in a world of data. In a world of biddable media, scale doesn’t guarantee you much. It’s helpful and it never hurts but …”

— Lee Doyle, chief investment officer at Empower Media, on the changing marketplace.

Speed reading

• I wrote about the continued disconnect between agencies and clients on understanding how best to use data, as uncovered by media consultancy ID Comms. 
• Sam Bradley made a bold call on OpenAI’s recent announced intent to weave advertisers into its LLM offerings, citing the fact that Google already got a jump on it. 
• In his Future of TV Briefing, Tim Peterson checked in on how YouTube is developing a program to pitch shows from top creators for advertisers to sponsor.