Media Buying Briefing: How Mediasense and other consultancies are girding for a busy second-half

London-based Mediasense, one of the bigger consultancies that helps navigate the murky and shark-filled waters, is working through its own shifting currents under a new CEO and the continued absorption of acquisitions over the last few years. 

At the same time, Mediasense’s majority owner, the U.K.-based private equity firm Apiary Capital, is hitting the half-decade mark since it invested in the consultancy. Few private equity backers stick around for longer than five years, and industry observers expect that newly minted CEO Sam Tomlinson — who moved up last week from chief client officer, replacing Jamie Posnanski, who has left the company and returned to the U.S. — will be steering a course to grant the company’s backers maximum room to maneuver.

The changes Mediasense is experiencing feel almost like a microcosm of what the media industry is undergoing — unrelenting adaptation to the changing needs of clients, while the competitive stakes remain high. Mediasense needs to get to another level if it’s going to benefit from the raft of client reviews that are expected in the second half of 2026. (Just this week Intuit put its $1 billion account, currently dominated by Omnicom, into review.)

For his part, Tomlinson — who came over to Mediasense when the firm acquired the U.K. marketing and media assets of PwC in 2024 — knows what’s at stake, and plans to ratchet up the firm’s position in the world of consultancies.

“Our vision is to be the No. 1 advisor of choice for marketers and their colleagues,” he told Digiday. “Our thesis is, if you’re a CEO and you want advice, you turn to McKinsey or Bain or BCG. If you’re a CFO, you turn to my old place at PwC or KPMG. If you’re a CTO, you turn to IBM or Capgemini. But if you’re a CMO and you want independent expert advice, you can definitely get expert advice from your agencies or from your big tech partners, that advice is expert but not independent. We want to be the people that can give a CMO advice that is both expert and independent.”

That said, he acknowledges the firm has a ways to go. “We often have relationships with the leader of marketing procurement, but we’re within the marketing function… We’re one level down; we’re with a brand lead or a media lead. Ultimately the goal for us is to be the advisor of choice for the CMO as well as the advisor of choice for their teams.”

Per COMvergence, media moves governing around $13 billion in media spend have already been concluded this year, while a further $11 billion is currently under review. At least 27 of the world’s top 100 global advertisers have not put their media accounts up for competitive review in over seven years.

When those accounts eventually shake loose, it’ll provide a backroom windfall for the consultancies orchestrating reviews. Ebiquity’s CEO Ruben Schreurs told Digiday that media reviews are “absolutely” on the rise.

But that expected upturn in new business contests highlights the competition between consultancy firms, and the additional demands being placed upon them by clients. Schreurs, for example, described his company’s pitch in remarkably similar terms to Tomlinson.

“Our business model is transformation when it leads to growth,” he said. “We help clients transform and grow, and [that] includes everything from McKinsey level strategy consulting, operating model design, partner selection, and pitch management to implementation support.”

(Both CEOs, for what it’s worth, also made the point that each company advises reviews only as a last resort for advertising clients).

As the head of another rival media consultancy, speaking on background, put it: “It’s very busy for our sector as marketing and media continue to get more complicated, less transparent, more risky and agencies become harder and harder to manage. We are finding that marketing leaders want an objective expert partner to help them develop strategies and apply good governance to their large investments in marketing communications.”

In a small, highly competitive sector, companies like Mediasense compete with rivals not just for clients but for talent. While some sources hinted to Digiday that Mediasense’s top team is spread thin across its clientele, Tomlinson said the company boasted a roster of senior talent led by Mediasense and R3 veterans Greg Paull, Shufen Goh and Ryan Kangisser that “are very, very capable of handling senior clients.”

Tomlinson said he expected to add to that stable. “We’re a growing business, we’ll continue to hire,” said the CEO.

Independent media management expertise has never mattered more. Which means Mediasense, like every rival in that lane, faces a tall task jockeying for position as consigliere to the CMO. A new CEO will help rally the business around one way of doing that. But the real skill will come down to something simpler: how well its execs can walk marketers through the technical, political, and ultimately existential shifts being foisted on the discipline.

Color by numbers

The marketing and media agency world seem intent on proving out the notion that there can be  “too much of a good thing,” in their approach to using measurement data in campaigns. Ebiquity and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) last week released results of a survey of 71 marketers representing some $40 billion in ad spend that found, among other things, that while eight out of 10 advertisers already run marketing mix modeling and brand lift studies, only 15% of leaders say effectiveness outputs are the primary driver of budget decisions. Some other high/lowlights: 

• Despite CFOs’ expectations about media investment being held to the same standards as other P&L items, only 14% of organizations say marketing and finance are fully aligned on what effectiveness means; 
• 46% of organizations sit at the lowest maturity levels for integrating data sources into a unified view; 
• Decision cycles are compressing faster than measurement can keep pace with, which is why 54% of leaders say insights arrive too late to act on;
• Despite those negative trends, 75% of respondents expect more than half of their budget allocation decisions to be measurement-led within three years. 

Takeoff & landing

• Intuit put its U.S. media business, which accounted for nearly $1 billion in spend, into review, affecting Omnicom’s Initiative mostly as the advertiser’s global media agency, but PMG, Dept and Wieden + Kennedy are reported to have some pieces of business as well. Brands affected include QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp and Credit Karma. 
• Havas made yet another purchase in the experiential space, buying Mut, a Barcelona-based experiential marketing and sustainable events shop. 
• London-based OOH specialist agency Talon expanded its presence in the U.S. with the purchase of PJX Media, which will continue to operate under the PJX name. Talon said the acquisition makes it the largest independent OOH agency in the U.S. 
• Account moves: Publicis Media’s Zenith reportedly held onto Reckitt’s U.S. media business, fending off WPP Media, which last year won the drugmaker’s European media work … But WPP Media expanded its wins with L’Oréal, landing media planning, buying, advocacy and influencer marketing in Australia and New Zealand, reported to amount to around $190 million … Also in that region, Havas Media won media AOR duties for children’s entertainment company Spin Master following a competitive pitch … Canvas Worldwide won media agency duties for the California Lottery, in a joint pitch with BSSP which won the creative business; it’s an account said to be authorized to spend up to $550 million. 

Direct quote

“If 2021 coming out of Covid was very much about efficiency and simplification, I’d say 2024 was recalibration — and I think 2027 would be far more transformative. [Marketers] want transformation, they don’t just want another media agency.”

—Ryan Kangisser, chief strategy officer at Mediasense, the advisory firm managing Coca-Cola’s current review, speaking with Seb Joseph.

Speed reading

• In her continuing ownership of the OpenAI ad beat, Krystal Scanlon found out that the firm is expanding ad operations into France, Germany and Ireland. 
• Sam Bradley dug into Sky’s move to acquire ITV, explaining what’s happening, and why advertisers still have a lot of lingering questions.  
• Ronan Shields investigated the rising concerns over shady activity around ad investments around the World Cup, given high ratings and interest.