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The Epsilon data unit has emerged as one of Publicis Groupe’s biggest weapons of its recent success, helping its stock to rise almost. 70% since the beginning of 2023.
“Operation Epsilon and Publicis Media are now totally intertwined and at the heart of our connected media ecosystem,” CEO Arthur Sadoun. said investors in their Q3 earnings call this year.
Competitors Omnicom and IPG, in the early stages of a $13 billion mega-merger, claim to have the heritage to rival Publicis data. U investor presentation of the acquisition said the integration of Omnicom’s Omni (which provides insights from data), Omnicom’s Flywheel (business data provider), IPG’s Interact (a marketing platform) and IPG’s data unit Acxiom.
Still, neither Omnicom nor IPG individually have been able to match Publicis’ data capabilities, according to multiple sources familiar with their data strategies. The stake was especially high for IPG, which spent billions to acquire a data unit.
Many are skeptical that a newly merged company can take advantage by combining capabilities.
“It’s four years too late,” said a source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This should have been done before the start of AI. Publicis is probably much better placed because they did the hard work first.”
An Omnicom spokesman said the company believes that with IPG, “we have the most advanced marketing and sales platform in the industry.”
ADWEEK spoke with seven sources who worked at Omnicom, IPG, or Publicis. Some have worked in many of these holdco data units. They explained what Publicis did right, how IPG fell, and revealed what the merged holdco would need to do to recover.
