Mediahub Is Adweek’s US Media Agency of the Year

For the first time in its history, Mediahub competed with the industry's largest media agencies in 2023. Its work is edgy, and it's embraced experiential elements for a long time. Six years ago, it created fake human bodies, encased them in liquid and installed them inside local bus stops. It made the news in West Hollywood, Calif., for scaring puzzled commuters. Turns out, it was a campaign for the dystopian Netflix show Altered Carbon. But until last year, the IPG media agency never courted the same global accounts worth hundreds of millions, or billions, as sister agencies Initiative and UM. That's because before January 2023, Mediahub was a subsidiary of IPG's creative network, MullenLowe Group. The other media agencies were part of the holding company's media network, IPG Mediabrands. After Mediahub joined Mediabrands, it could access group-level resources and had new negotiating power. Holding companies typically pool clients’ money to buy media in bulk from publishers and at the upfronts. The more ad space a holding company commits to buy, the better the discount. Mediabrands manages a collective $40 billion in media billings that now benefit Mediahub. The agency grew 5% year over year in 2023 and brought in new billings worth $240 million across 14 new client engagements. Mediahub is ADWEEK's 2024 U.S. Media Agency of the Year because it held onto its creative style while undergoing drastic change. Now with unbound access to group-level media resources and new global scale, Mediahub is free to chase larger accounts. “When Mediahub goes into a pitch right now, it's Mediahub-plus," said John Moore, Mediahub’s global CEO. "Being part of Mediabrands just gets us in different pitches. It gets consultants to look at us differently. It gets new business prospects to look at us differently. It almost changed the narrative," he added. IPG Mediabrands Consolidates Tech Shops Reprise and Matterkind Into the Kinesso Brand Competing in large, global reviews Usually, when a large brand distributes an RFI, holding company media groups choose an agency subsidiary to lead the pitch. Mediabrands previously funneled AOR work either to Initiative or UM. Mediahub would be invited to global pitches but contended with unique challenges. When it pitched Pinterest in fall 2019, Mediahub had to "cobble things together," Moore said. When Ōura chief marketing officer Doug Sweeny began searching for a new media agency partner, he knew he was looking for global reach. A U.S.-based media agency serving challenger brands wouldn’t have fit the CMO’s brief. "We have a very measured global footprint strategy. We don't need to duplicate what Initiative and UM are doing. We just need to be in the significant markets to make it count," Moore said. With Mediabrands' backing, Mediahub has invested in global growth and opened shop in continental Europe, Latin America, Japan and New Zealand. The international expansion made it possible for Mediabrands to pitch for the Ōura account and win it. "We needed to be part of a media entity [Mediabrands] to tap into the things that are already built into those markets," Moore said. A new global footprint is benefiting some of Mediahub's existing clients. New Balance expanded its scope to the extent that Mediahub's managing its investments in the Australia, EMEA, China, Japan and New Zealand markets. "When they first came in, we'd give them a smaller scope. Now they're basically agency of record for all things media in North America," said Tracy Knauer, vice president of North America marketing, ecommerce and consumer analytics at New Balance. "They started out within the U.S., and now our relationship has grown and they service over 20 markets." Categorizing Attention Tracking Partners: What Marketers Need to Know About This Ad Metric Key wins: Mediahub secured 14 new client engagements totaling over $240 million in billings. New clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BuildAI, Dow Jones, Esprit, HubSpot, Jägermeister, Lodge Cast Iron, Nexon, Ōura, Silversea Cruises, Stitch Fix and Schwan’s Company. Losses: Western Union. After a brand-side leadership change, the client opted for an entirely performance-driven strategy. Revenue: Mediahub's estimated 2023 revenue is between $220 million and $240 million, a 5% increase from 2022. Strategic moves: Mediahub reorganized. It eschewed its office-level leadership model to embrace a national leadership structure. It also expanded its C-suite by adding a chief client officer, chief operating officer and chief talent officer. The agency has a large proprietary technology stack. It leverages tools like its ARC attention planner, powered by a new data partnership with attention-tracking firm Adelaide. DEI: Of Mediahub's employees, 37% identify as Black, Indigenous or a person of color. BIPOC talent makes up 26% of employees at the managerial level and 22% at the executive level. The agency stands out from others for its gender equity, given 71% of its workforce identify as women, and they comprise 68% of talent at the managerial level and 58% at the executive level. Embracing Mediabrands' resources Mediahub adopted Mediabrands' benefits—from its employee policies to group-level technology. Its employees enjoy a relatively progressive parental leave policy, with six months’ total leave for new parents. The group’s Media Responsibility Index (MRI) also benefits Mediahub. The tool vets 200 supply-side partners across five media types and 15 countries to root out those spreading misinformation.This year, Mediahub partnered with attention vendor Adelaide to access its attention benchmarks. Mediahub’s product leader, Ed McElvain, used the Adelaide data to develop Mediahub's ARC, an attention research tool that helps advertisers divest from low-quality impressions. Pinpointing the inefficient media also helps Mediahub negotiate buys on those properties. Now Mediahub has added ARC to its marketing intelligence platform that planners can access as a web application. "We're going to bring all the great efficiency to partnerships that we get from Magna and Mediabrands and compete in the marketplace on price. But reality is, we think we're actually able now to distinguish and discern ... the right impression to buy," said Sean Corcoran, Mediahub's U.S. CEO. Building tools for ambitious goals Attention-based buys help agencies reduce their carbon emissions, too. The research is a boon to Mediahub and its group alike, given IPG Mediabrands’ commitment to reaching carbon neutrality by 2040. Last year, Mediahub yielded 4% fewer base emissions and 14% fewer supply path emissions compared to 2022. Mediahub gained a lot from joining its new group, but its attention research and progression toward equitable media spend could benefit its sister agencies, too.Mediahub increased its collective client media spend with diverse-owned media partners from 2% in 2022 to 3% in 2023. Mediahub's 3% investment is the highest any holding company media agency has publicly shared. "Some partners that may be low-scale do have high attention because they speak to [audiences of color] in a very genuine way," said Femaris Peña, senior vice president and director of diversity demand and supply at Mediahub. Its proprietary tools and strategy get Mediahub closer to its own 5% goal. It rolled out a new Programmatic Inclusion Initiative, which requires that programmatic media plans include diverse-owned inventory suggestions. It also built Balance, a tool that measures client spend levels across diverse-owned publishers, and introduced it into planner workflows. "They're always pushing us to explore new, innovative partners. They push us to think differently about multicultural and diverse partners, and we're exploring different properties all the time in that regard," Knauer said. KEY CAMPAIGNS New Balance To remind consumers of New Balance's history in the running category, Mediahub built its own brand measurement tool, Brand Pulse. Upon its launch, the tool captured data in six markets, across six languages and about 10 New Balance competitors. With the tool, Mediahub could ask consumers standard brand awareness questions, plus questions about New Balance that revealed why customers lose interest in any ad—whether because of media exposure, ad stock, seasonality or creative fatigue. "It was so influential, because honestly, we didn't have any money to invest in different platforms and multicultural campaigns [before]. Everything was going against lower-funnel, instant-gratification ROAS," Knauer said. With its "Runlock" campaign, New Balance wanted to associate the endorphin release known as "runner's high" with its brand. It partnered with Strava to launch the Runlock Challenge, in which 251,322 Strava users committed to run 30 kilometers, or about 18.6 miles, in 30 days. Eventually, the campaign expanded from the U.K. and reached runners in 180 countries. It included social media and influencer marketing, in-person activations and out-of-home ads. Some users found rewards along their running route, inside strategically placed lockers. During the campaign, New Balance's association with running increased by 5.1%, the Brand Pulse tool showed. Topgolf Topgolf's aggressive U.S. expansion strategy meant it needed to spread its message on a national scale. To do it, Topgolf chief brand officer Geoff Cottrill and Mediahub partnered with ESPN to release its first linear ad. With the NFL season's end looming, Topgolf wanted to acknowledge that after the Super Bowl, sports entertainment faced a drop-off. Network anchors Keyshawn Johnson and Elle Duncan, alongside commentators Gary Striewski and Omar Raja, co-wrote, produced and starred in the ad, "ESPN: Postseason Fun." Set behind the scenes after the Big Game broadcast shuts off, the tired ESPN anchors find themselves thinking, "Now we have a whole bunch of free time." They head to the roof to hit golf balls, but when it gets too cold and the anchors break a few things, they change their minds. "It's freezing out here, and we could actually go to Topgolf," says Johnson. It took just three weeks to produce the ad. It premiered during ESPN's postgame show, in the first commercial spot. The strategy meant Topgolf avoided an expensive in-game ad but reaped some of the benefits. The work boosted brand awareness by 17%, increased brand favorability by 11% and upped collective consumer intent to visit a Topgolf location by 14%. What Topgolf Is Looking for From Mediahub, Its New Media Agency of Record

Media Agency of the Year

Mediahub Is Adweek’s US Media Agency of the Year

The agency held onto its creative flair, but added scale when it joined IPG Mediabrands

Olivia Morley

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Olivia Morley