Starcom Hires New CMO, Plans Brand Refresh

Publicis Media's Starcom has hired Robert Schwartz, previously of IBM, Carat and WPP, as its new chief marketer. The hire comes as Starcom is planning a brand refresh, and Schwartz is charged with repositioning Starcom in the market. He will lead both global and U.S. marketing. Before coming to Starcom, Schwartz was vice president of brand transformation at IBM and led branding efforts for IBM Consulting. Previously, he held the CMO role at Dentsu's Carat and served as COO of WPP's Ogilvy. Schwartz comes into the role during a time when the CMO of a holding company agency has a particularly important and challenging job. Today the role of agency brands is up for debate. Many holding companies, Publicis Groupe included, more frequently pitch at the group level or even at the holding company level. That means that individual agency brands risk getting lost or overshadowed by their networks, and today's agency marketing leads must contend with that. The agency CMO must also face the inherent challenge of positioning an agency's brand alongside its sister agencies, the group level and the holding company at large. A brand builder Schwartz rounds out Starcom's leadership team. The agency brought on a new CEO, Michael Epstein, last June, who also came from Carat and had worked closely with Schwartz in the past. And in March, Starcom announced it had elevated five women to leadership roles, most in the c-suite. "Robert is a brand builder. In many cases, sometimes media agencies tend to put ex-media people or media people into CMO roles. And so his perspective tends to be more about what it's like to build brands," Epstein told Adweek. The leadership changes reflect a new version of Starcom, and Schwartz's mission is to shape the updated brand. Next year, Starcom will celebrate its 25-year anniversary. Epstein told Adweek that recent changes are with the aim of making it "the most modern media agency out there." Marketing the market leader Starcom isn't the only agency going through a refresh. Agencies are tasked with managing their client's brands, but have rarely turned much attention to their own. "We do big, beautiful, wonderful, amazing brand building on behalf of our clients, and we are reasonably terrible doing that work for ourselves. So I actually find that dichotomy interesting and a huge opportunity," Schwartz told Adweek. The advertising industry is oversaturated with agencies as they've proliferated, especially in recent years, and many agencies, like Stagwell's Assembly and MMI, recently rebranded. Schwartz and Epstein aim to complete Starcom's brand refresh by the end of this year. Schwartz will lead brand research to develop a set of pillars and a brand narrative. Starcom will have a new website and there will be a focus at the agency on thought leadership as a platform. "I think the notion of the human experience company was a great one but it's well over a decade old. And I think it's lost a little bit of its meaning and its relevance," said Epstein. Starcom led COMvergence's new business rankings last year, pulling in big accounts including Stellantis and McDonald's. The brand refresh will underscore Starcom's place as a market leader, according to the CEO. Starcom Continues Long History of Being Female-Led With 5 New Execs