Omnicom Media Group strikes partnership with Snap for creator collaboration
Having cut creator and influencer partnerships with most of the major platforms over the last year, Omnicom Media Group has aligned with Snap — while generating research that shows Snap creators have a strong likability factor that could resonate well with clients.
Omnicom Media Group’s no-longer-so-new-but-new-in-name influencer marketing agency Creo is partnering with Snapchat’s Snap Star Collab Studio to develop brand campaigns with the platform’s creators, known as Snap Stars, Digiday has learned. OMG’s CPG clients are most likely first in line to make use of the program — although the agency declined to say which.
The Collab studio is designed to be marketer-friendly, in that it’s a managed service production program meant to pair marketers with the right creator/influencer, as well as to craft aligned content for the brand in question.
Kevin Blazaitis, Creo’s president, said the agency will be able to layer customized audience data from Omni, the operating system that powers all of parent Omnicom’s data and insights, across all stages of OMG clients’ creator campaigns, from discovery to content creation to activation, to inform decisioning and optimize outcomes.
“We are looking at how intimate and how trustworthy those Snap influencers are,” said Blazaitis. “The ability to validate that with our own data that is only available through Omni, makes it a really nice quantifiable step to tie creator actions back to those consumers’ journey.”
Creo also gets first-look options on new products and services that Snap rolls out. The two have also agreed to pursue opportunities to co-author consumer research that will inform more precise planning and measurement in a category that is capturing an increasing share of marketers’ spend.
“As our global community … continues to grow and engagement across the platform increases, we are excited to expand our multi-faceted partnership with OMG in the creator space,” said Jesse Mitchell, senior manager of global agency development at Snap, who said the platform now reaches of 432 million daily active users. “Our new research … found that creator campaigns boost sales and brand lift.”
The research, which was conducted by a firm called eye square, was overseen on the OMG side by chief intelligence officer Joanna O’Connell. It found that seeing a creator’s ad prior to a product-focused ad drove a significant increase in brand purchases on e-commerce sites in general. Also, more than two-thirds (67%) of respondents also reported that creators’ opinions are relevant during the customer journey.
“It’s not that creators and influencers are just a discovery vehicle — they are something that really can drive consideration and purchase,” said O’Connell. “It echoes things that we’ve seen in the past, so it’s really validating to see something like that.”
“Brands can assess users’ reaction to ads in real time and our AdtoCart technology can definitively determine if users are taking action after they see an ad,” said Stefan Schönherr, eye square’s evp of brand and media experience. “Together, they played a pivotal role in demonstrating how creator messaging can improve brand reputation and drive performance for marketers.”
Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s chief activation officer, noted that it’s been a mission of sorts to round out creator partnerships with all the major social platforms — earlier in 2024 it struck deals with Google, TikTok, Amazon and Meta — and with a Snap deal done, it’s mission is accomplished.
“It is pretty much a clean sweep of all of the social platforms in the industry that’s providing better benefit and a unique competitive advantage for our clients, while also raising the bar of the industry,” Pagliuca said.
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