Is Accenture's Programmatic Pivot a Primal Threat to Media Agencies?

One consultancy might just disrupt the market

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The consultancies are no longer coming … they’re here.

What had been a semi-serious joke in the agency world became a bit more real last month when Accenture Interactive, the international consultancy’s marketing division, announced plans to begin offering programmatic media buying services.

The news was significant, but not unexpected.

“It’s a perfectly logical step for Accenture Interactive to launch a programmatic service, because they already advise many businesses on technology, infrastructure, process and skills, which are essentially the key ingredients of an in-house programmatic operation,” said Tom Denford, co-founder and chief strategy officer of global management consultancy ID Comms.

Sarah Warner, digital investment lead for programmatic and video at WPP’s GroupM, added, “I wasn’t particularly surprised by this.”

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