PMG Introduces New Strategic Planning and Insights Practice

Adweek's 2020 Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year is building on its past success with the introduction of a new practice expanding its strategic offering and designed to compliment its existing strengths. Independent digital agency PMG is formally launching its strategic planning and insights practice with industry veterans at the helm. Aimed at helping brands navigate acceleration of changing consumer behavior fueled by the pandemic, the practice is intended to bolster the agency's data-driven model with cultural and behavioral insights connected to business, creative and media, and help brands drive engagement with consumers at opportune moments. PMG founder and CEO (and 2021 Adweek Media All-Star) George Popstefanov said PMG was in the process of building out the practice last year, when years of accelerating conversations around data privacy and consumer behavioral changes accelerated by the pandemic led to the realization that the agency needed to speed up the time line for developing the offering. "It's no longer [just] doing strategy for media or content creation," Popstefanov said. "The growth of our business ... allowed us to put in place two world-class strategy leaders to build something different in how we're driving business insights." Building the team PMG veteran Angela Seits is leading the practice as head of strategic planning and insights, along with director of strategic planning and consumer insights Shelina Taki, who recently joined PMG from Cashmere Agency. Taki previously held strategy and insights leadership roles at Annalect, 180LA and Austin agency Third Ear. Seits and Taki previously worked together when both held strategy roles in the Los Angeles office of Saatchi & Saatchi. "In the time of pandemic it became more and more important to emphasize people instead of work. I've never experienced an agency like this. It is a unique organization," Taki said. Seits and Taki are leading a team of 10 recent hires from companies ranging from Annalect to The Richards Group, also a recent source of creative hires for the agency as it reinvents its approach for the new practice. "We're excited about the team we built. We brought on some of the best people in the industry," Seits said. "We've [also] been increasing integration between planning and the data and analytics team. Having those teams working closely together has been huge." The agency also built out a fully functional and scalable research arm for the practice, and collectively the team is fully versed in research and strategy, cultural intelligence and data research, Seits explained. PMG Rebrands Around New Mantra: Digital Made for Humans Hearts and minds As a result of its integrated offering, Seits said PMG is able to move more rapidly to provide digital strategic insights in days, rather than weeks, while they're still relevant. "It has to move very quickly and the customer sees [the experience resulting from those insights] very quickly," Seits said. "It's about taking insights form data resources and cultural intelligence and putting that together." Taki said the aim is to "get into the hearts and minds of consumers, to connect in a way that matters." "Consumers expect a level of personalization," she said. "The insights and data mining we do allows that, and we hope we're bringing that to brands." As an independent agency founded with a focus on digital, Seits said PMG has a degree of agility and flexibility in adapting to consumer shifts and breaking down silos that holding company competitors can't match. "We're at a competitive advantage for a couple of reasons," she said. "We grew up digital. Agility has been our superpower from the beginning. We're always thinking about what the digital experience is and building around it. That has informed the way we plan media and impacts business decisions. It has been the foundation from the beginning." PMG has already put the new practice to work for clients including Madewell, Tommy Bahama and Tripwire, and it helped the agency win assignments from TikTok and the USTA for the 2021 U.S. Open.