Omnicom Group Inc. has agreed to take a majority stake in technology firm Areteans Technology Solutions Private Ltd. as the advertising holding company continues to grow its capabilities in digital transformation, marketing and consulting.
The acquisition of Hyderabad, India-based Areteans, which employs 600 people, will expand Omnicom’s data and digital consulting unit Credera.
Areteans uses technology, including customer relationship management software from Pegasystems Inc., to help clients acquire and retain customers as well as to build digital marketing and e-commerce capabilities. Customers for its services include Unilever PLC, Macquarie Group Ltd. and QBE Insurance Group Ltd.
Marketers are looking for more efficient ways to deliver personalized messages as consumers spend increasing amounts of time shopping and devouring content online. They also are investing increasing amounts in digital marketing as technology that supports those efforts gets more sophisticated, said Luke Taylor, chief executive officer of Omnicom Precision Marketing Group, which houses Credera.
“You’ve got better software platforms, more competitive dynamics and you’ve got a more demanding consumer who expects a degree of relevance,” Mr. Taylor said.
“Clients are ultimately looking at how effectively they can reconcile third-party, second-party and first-party data,” he added, referring to classes of consumer information defined by the distance between a company and the consumer. Marketers’ use of data supplied by third parties is under pressure amid new privacy regulations and coming policy changes by Google and Apple Inc.
Companies also are focusing on how they can use algorithms to help deliver “the right content to the right person at the right time across all channels,” Mr. Taylor said.
The planned transaction also is a play to gain share from large technology consulting firms, said Mr. Taylor. “We talk about Accenture moving in our direction, but this is a credible move in their direction, and it’s an area that’s scaling for us very fast,” said Mr. Taylor.
Consulting firms in recent years have been treading on agencies’ turf with ambitions to add the chief marketing officer to their robust C-suite Rolodex, and to service technology and data projects that are increasingly overseen by marketing teams. Accenture PLC in 2019 acquired advertising agency Droga5, for example, and Deloitte in 2016 acquired creative agency Heat.
The latest Omnicom deal will bolster the company’s presence in India, where a majority of Areteans’s staffers are based, said Mr. Taylor.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter, Omnicom said.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at [email protected]
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