Flywheel powers digital commerce for over 4,500 global brands – from the largest CPGs to breakout challengers. Its Commerce Cloud integrates retail media, marketplace operations, and product intelligence into a unified platform. With near real-time data and AI automation, Flywheel helps brands optimize product visibility, media performance, and profitability across major marketplaces.

By connecting retail media, retail operations, and marketplace intelligence, Flywheel delivers real-time insights from product catalogues, search data, and sales performance. Its AI-driven tools enhance product placements, catalogue efficiency, and full-funnel commerce execution – driving incremental sales, market share, and margin growth. Flywheel’s global network of retailers and marketplaces provides unmatched scale and data advantages for clients.

The MENA launch combines Flywheel’s global AI capabilities with OMG’s local strength in retail media, CRM, and DTC strategy. The integrated team is ideally positioned to build and execute connected commerce strategies that grow both sales and share across all digital touchpoints.

Picture from right to left: Raoul Zenon, General Manager, Flywheel MENA, Elda Choucair, CEO, OMG MENA, Neha Karani, Senior Manager, Flywheel MENA, and Sulagna Kapoor, Senior Director, Flywheel MENA

As reported in the 2022 Media Agency New Business Barometer – an analysis of the global media agency marketplace published by independent research company COMvergence – OMG agencies added more than $2.5 billion in incremental client billings last year.

Leading with an offer that connects media, content, and commerce, OMG’s net new billings added outpaced the second-ranked group by close to $670 million; exceeded the combined totals of the second and third-ranked groups by more than $100 million; and bested the fourth-ranked group by a factor of ten-plus. OMG also had the best global win-to-loss ratio, with more than 3x more new billings coming into the agency ($3.75 billion) than left ($1.2 billion) in 2022. 

OMG was also the top net gains performer in APAC, North America, and the UK.

Equally important as its incremental wins, OMG’s 2022 retention rate across the entirety of its client base was an industry-leading 98%.

“In a marketplace where complexity is a bigger pain point than ever before, clients are looking for the optimal mix of deep specialization and deep integration,” said OMG CEO Florian Adamski.

Summing up OMG’s performance in 2022, Adamski drew a direct line to a comprehensive analysis of global media agency groups from research and advisory firm Forrester, in which OMG received the highest possible scores in the critical future-defining development areas of retail media, commerce media, intelligence and insights, optimization, operations automation, and innovation.

“OMG has built – and continues to build – the capabilities, partnerships, technology, and talent force that empower our agencies to deliver transformative consumer experiences on behalf of our clients, driving sales today and share tomorrow,” said Adamski.  

OMD and PHD top the agency network rankings  

Accordingly, OMG’s best-in-class ranking consolidates powerful performances by its OMD and PHD agency networks in 2022. Leveraging their parent company’s assets – including Omni, Omnicom’s marketing orchestration platform – OMD and PHD topped the global agency network net new business rankings at #1 and #2. OMD also led in the EMEA and MENA rankings, with $370 million and $55 million respectively.    

OMD was also the top-ranked agency for total new business won in 2022, which reflects business that went into review and was successfully defended. 

“Our results in 2022 prove that we are a trusted partner to brands in pivotal moments of transformation, enabled by truly differentiated capabilities in digital, data, and tech to navigate new paths to growth,” said George Manas, CEO of OMD Worldwide.

“Our expertise in handling data, tech, and everything that digital transformation entails, on top of our traditional services and legacy in communication planning, creativity, and effectiveness, is our growth engine. As clients see the impact of these new services in real time and in business terms, demand for them is rising fast, accelerating our own transformation. Across the region, new territories are added to our remits, and new expectations [are] included in our briefs. The more clients challenge us, the more we challenge the status quo with solutions that help us make better decisions faster,” explained Saleh Ghazal, CEO of OMD MENA.

The release of the 2022 Media Agency New Business Barometer wraps up a year of announcements, including a multi-year agreement with Affinity Solutions to integrate retailer purchase transactions into Omni – Omnicom's marketing orchestration platform; an enterprise-wide partnership with Firework, the world’s largest livestream commerce and shoppable video platform, to deliver livestream shopping solutions directly to Omnicom clients’ websites; the industry’s first programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens; and the Supply Chain IQ Score, which gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory-in-transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real time.

At the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, OMG also announced a series of first-mover strategic partnerships with retail media networks including Walmart Connect (cross-screen planning with Omni ID), Instacart (joint clean room development), and Kroger Precision Marketing (supply chain optimization for media targeting); and the global expansion of its TRKKN analytics and cloud consultancy that offers Google Marketing and Cloud Stack support. Also at the festival, OMD was named  Media Network of the Year – the same honor that PHD had earned in 2021.

The end of the year saw the scaling of Omnicom’s Transact connected commerce consultancy as a global resource that will help brands gain first-mover advantage from its retail media network partnerships, and grow their market share in e-retail.

Launched by UAE resident Sandy Stirling two years ago, the initiative aims to raise awareness around the motor neuron disease (MND), a condition that damages parts of the nervous system and leads to muscle weakness and eventually to death. The initiative encourages people to set up their own 24-hour challenge across any type of activity and currently has 184 events set up in 36 countries.

Taking it in turns to cycle for the 24 hours between them, the team covered a total of 53 hours, 1,156.5km, and 2,712m of elevation.

Alanna Turpin, Director of Sustainability and Culture at OMG, said, “Here at OMG, we love combining physical challenges with a good cause. As an active cyclist, I was keen to get an OMG team together to complete the 24 hours. These types of shared experiences take us out of our comfort zone and create a type of bonding you wouldn’t get while [sitting] in the office. Maybe next year we’ll all come back attempting the 24 hours solo!”.

The event will focus on the battle for attention and will be headlined, for the first time in Saudi Arabia, by Scott Galloway.

Galloway is Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, a serial entrepreneur, the author of four books, a podcaster and a sought-after media commentator. He will share his sharp data-driven insights and thought-provoking take on the attention economy.

With attention spans dropping and media doing their best to keep people glued to their screens, attention is the most crucial marketing commodity – the new oil.

"OMG AI: The Battle for Attention" will look into the future of the marketing industry, exploring a paradigm shift and explaining why attention matters so much, how to measure, work with, and benefit from it, revealing exclusive local insights.

The event will also consider the capabilities, both human and technological, marketing and advertising professionals will need to deploy to thrive.

The Forrester Wave™: Global Media Management Services report analyzes the seven most significant global media management service providers against a 19-criterion evaluation across three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence. Designed to help CMOs select the right provider for their needs, the report assesses the media groups under four designations: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers. What makes this research significant is that it provides marketers with a robust method to identify the best partner for them. In an era when marketing experiences rapid transformation, this is one relationship that has a crucial impact on performance and profitability.

With the highest possible scores in six criteria, and with the highest score in the current offering category, Omnicom Media Group was one of only two providers among the seven evaluated to earn the designation of a “Leader” in the report. 

Describing OMG as “a good fit for advertisers that require bespoke, technology-literate, global media teams”, the report also noted that “… the agency scales consumer empathy and understanding into quantifiable attention metrics against which advertisers can plan, buy, and measure. To achieve this vision, the company deploys its Omni audience planning portal to power better audience, client, and employee experiences.”

The report also states that “OMG’s strength lies in initiatives to innovate its Omni portals, such as customized client workflow integrations, audience data integrations; marketing automation partnerships with Google; and efforts to unite media, e-commerce, and shopper tactics.”

This finding is borne out by a steady drumbeat of first-mover product and partnership announcements from OMG in 2022, including a multi-year agreement with Affinity Solutions to integrate retailer purchase transactions into Omni; an enterprise-wide partnership with Firework, the world’s largest live stream commerce and shoppable video platform, to  deliver live stream shopping solutions directly to Omnicom clients’ websites; the industry’s first programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens; and the Supply Chain IQ Score, which gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory-in-transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real-time.

Most recently, OMG was headline news at last month’s  Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, announcing a series of first-mover strategic partnerships with retail media networks including Walmart  Connect,  Instacart, and Kroger Precision Marketing.

“As the only agency group to have earned the highest possible score in all three of the criteria that we believe best represent the future of media investment and management – retail media, commerce media, and intelligence & insights – and as a group that also received the highest possible scores in two criteria that we think are critical differentiators in selecting an agency partner –operations and an innovation road map – OMG is clearly a leader in today’s marketplace,” says OMG CEO Florian Adamski. “More importantly, as we continue to expand our capabilities and automate our infrastructure, and to build new products and partnerships, we are assuring that we and our clients will remain leaders –   today, tomorrow and beyond.”

This promotion comes at a time when OMD worldwide solidified its position as the global leading media agency after winning Media Network of the Year at Cannes Lions last week and ranking first in RECMA’S 2021 network diagnostics report. Over the past five years, OMD has transformed its product to help its clients not only navigate challenges but also reach new heights. By precisely calibrating its talent, tools, technology, and consumer understanding from a demographic, behavioral segmentation, and psychographic perspective, the network has been able to pivot its service offering to meet the ever-evolving needs of its clients. In this role, Ghazal will ensure OMD’s award-winning excellence and best practices are deployed across the region and take the network to the next level.

Driven by his passion for technology, Ghazal started his career in digital media. Over the years, he combined his digital expertise with his account servicing skills to deliver relevant, effective, and innovative hybrid business solutions for clients. Thanks to his business acumen and innate commercial strength, which continuously allowed him to create value for OMD’s clients and help them grow their business, he successfully transitioned from client to agency leadership.

“Saleh’s journey to this point, growing through the ranks, has prepared him well for this moment. The joy of seeing someone start his career at OMD and take the helm after 15 years of consistent performance is unparalleled. Saleh will not only strengthen the OMD network but also create the conditions for all our clients to meet and exceed their goals and ambitions, with the best talent, experience, practices, and know-how,” said Elda Choucair, CEO of Omnicom Media Group MENA, in a statement.

“It is an exciting time for OMD not just regionally but globally too. We’re celebrating our big Cannes Lion win of Media Network of the Year and the title of Agency Network of the Year at the MENA Digital Awards. Our clients, talent, and partners keep aiming higher and that opens award-winning possibilities,” said Ghazal. “I am ready to be at the forefront and lead this advancement, acting as a catalyst for the consistent and comprehensive roll-out of our offering everywhere.”

Ghazal will continue to report to Choucair as CEO of the group, and the OMD offices across the MENA region will report to him. The promotion is effective from July 1.

The virtual gathering opened with a quick introduction to the official launch by Charlotte Fernandes, from ABG. Following which Nick Stringer, Vice President of Global Engagement & Operations at TAG delved straight into explaining TAG’s approach in the GCC. “The growth across individual markets has come with some significant challenges here,” said Nick. He further explained the findings of a recent study conducted by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) which cited how advertisers across the globe lost 5.8 billion dollars in 2019, to piracy and malware.

A successful partnership

As brands, agencies and businesses are keeping digital advertising and marketing at the heart of their consumer’s experience, keeping an eye out for concerns that can become grave becomes crucial.

With over 700 companies on board and its standards applied and running across 40 countries, TAG will now tap into piracy, malware and provide solutions to reduce the risk of ad displacement to advertisers across the region. Elaborating on the process, Stringer explained how being legitimate is the gateway to having a trustworthy inventory. “We verify the legitimacy of every business that is part of TAG, since there are many ad frauds out there that are signifying themselves as legitimate,” he added.

Action against malware and piracy hazards to ensure brand safety

“Each of our standards are supported by a working review of companies, who ensure that they meet the market’s needs and trends,” explained Stringer. TAG’s four filters – protection removal, application, and domain filtration as well as data threat filtering, will help deploy valid traffic across digital advertising platforms.

Elda Choucair, CEO at Omnicom Media Group (OMG) and Vice Chair at ABG added:” It’s all about elevating the premise of advertising, fighting ad fraud, and making sure that return on investments is being recorded. From an agency perspective, we have a responsibility to our clients and brands to justify the effectiveness, especially of the content we put out in spaces where it is exposed to such threats.”

A responsibility towards clients, brands and agencies

“Driving action against ad fraud is not an option, we need to take it on ourselves to foster it across our digital supply chain,” said Rohit Batra, Senior Director at P&G. TAG aims to boost trust and protect investments in digital ad spending while also driving increased returns.

Choucair’s tenure as COO has seen her focus heavily on the group’s response to the impact of the pandemic. She has further demonstrated her leadership talent by successfully addressing both internal and external challenges and played a crucial role in transforming OMG’s regional operations by readying its resources for new and emerging market expectations.

In the last couple of years, the holding’s networks – OMD, PHD, and Hearts & Science – have secured impressive account wins and award recognition at the MENA Effies and the Dubai Lynx. They also enhanced their talent pool through skill development and recruitment; and deployed several new processes and platforms to respond to challenges with speed, precision, and effectiveness.

A 15-year veteran at the group, Choucair held senior account positions at OMD and led PHD for over ten years. Under her leadership, the regional media planning network grew seven-fold and became a key player in the region. Her success in creating a future-ready positioning for PHD made it a compelling proposition for both staff and clients, recognized by prestigious awards and accolades.

She will continue to report to Elie Khouri, who founded OMG two decades ago and whose career at Omnicom spans over 30 years. In that time, Khouri has stimulated the group’s growth, in scale and service offering, and steered it to a leadership position on a broad range of metrics. The company has long been recognized as one of the best employers in the UAE and a leader in sustainability.

Choucair will now assume full control of all OMG MENA operations and accelerate their transformation to stay ahead of the curve. She is also an active industry figure, as Vice-Chair of the Advertising Business Group, board member of the IAB GCC, and the IAA UAE Chapter, and a founding board member of the Unstereotype Alliance.

“Elda is a true success story in her own right and has never stopped impressing everyone around her. Her vision, coupled with her pragmatism and attention to detail, means that she knows where we need to go and how to get there,” said Elie Khouri, Chairman of OMG MENA. “Her relentless dedication and drive have earned her immense respect. Elda certainly has an impeccable track record of advancing 360° growth, capability expansion and overall excellence at both agency and holding levels.”

“Our regional management’s ability to stimulate growth for our clients, our staff and our agencies in the face of adversity is truly remarkable. Credit goes to Elie who has engineered and nurtured this inspiring culture of course but also to Elda, who’s embraced it fully,” commented Mike Cooper, OMG CEO for EMEA and APAC. “Elda’s contribution to our success in the region to date has proved critical. Her energy, commitment, client skills and professionalism will serve her well in her new role to assure the best outcomes for all our stakeholders and clients. She is the perfect person to take OMG MENA forward.”

“Navigating complexity and ambiguity certainly makes leadership exciting and rewarding in equal measures. Our industry, in the midst of a deep and rapid transformation, provides plenty of both and if we are to make complex simpler and better for our clients, we owe it to them to start with ourselves,” said Elda Choucair, CEO of OMG MENA. “We’ve already had plenty of opportunity to innovate and adapt to new conditions of course, so we’re well used to questioning and challenging the status quo. We’re ready for what lies ahead.”

The deprecation of the third-party cookie is an opportunity for advertising to get back to its essence and focus on its core objective: to build customer trust and brand love. Nifty marketeers will benefit significantly from this new environment, producing better marketing and business results through extensive application of machine learning and measurement methods. Clients’ evaluation of digital maturity and transformation will also increase as they recognize the need for a simple yet impactful technology stack to support media ROI.

So, what does this mean for the digital players going forward?

First-party and second-party data will become vital to all parties – agency, publisher and marketeer. As data shifts become more deterministic, targeting and predictive assessment strengthens. We will see CPM/CPA increase for these premium datasets as volumes decrease, but quality and precision will be a key benefit.

Publishers with compelling value propositions and deep customer relationships (logged-in users) will benefit the most from a cookie-less world. Publishers can utilize their first-party data as a match point with marketeers to unlock the value of one-to-one marketing without the need for cookies. And all this can be done in a privacy-compliant way that protects the proprietary data of both parties.

Our preconceived notions of the value of an impression are reevaluated as we shift towards LifeTime Value and consumer behaviors beyond media providing a holistic approach to a brand’s business. Over time, metrics will change as success will be measured against LTV.

Contextual targeting will become more significant as placement adjacency is evaluated and becomes valued from a stance of context over audience, heavily reducing brand safety risks. More so, publishers will need to focus on content quality and UX experience to remain at the forefront.

One channel that is not impacted by recent changes is apps, where mobile app IDs act as the primary key for identification. Rumors of device IDs being restricted in the future abound, but nothing has been confirmed. If the web is any indication, our time horizon is measured in years.

How to prepare for a cookie-less world?

Firstly, stay ahead of changes and remain well-informed through Google updates. Evaluate the way you store and collect data and ensure that you have the right technology infrastructure in place. Data tools will be crucial in building your ecosystem. At Omnicom Media Group, we work closely with Google to maintain a continuous test-and-learn approach that minimizes any negative impact brands may face moving forward.

We use powerful technology, like our proprietary people-based precision marketing and insights platform Omni, to advance our clients’ capabilities in data collection, audience insight, and campaign execution. Omni is powered by GDPR-compliant offline and online data sources. This is a single solution for data mining, planning, activation, and measurement. Omni allows us to provide predictive and actionable insights from a client’s CRM or first-party data while remaining privacy-compliant.

What is the purpose behind these initiatives?

Part of my role at Omnicom Media Group is working with charities and non-profits to support them in achieving their mission. Sometimes this can mean organizing volunteering opportunities or charity trips for our employees, or it could be fundraising or donating. Since the start of COVID-19, we’ve had to cancel most of our plans for the year. It’s fair to say that the majority of people on this planet are wondering how they can be part of the solution, so it’s only natural that we, as the media industry, want to do what we do best. We know how to amplify the response to the fundraising campaigns of our partners, which ensures the continuity of their much-needed critical relief efforts. Usually, there is no media budget assigned to these campaigns.

At a time when donation budgets are either being frozen entirely or are allocated to pure COVID-19 relief, our partner charities and non-profits around the world need us more than ever. One of my favorite quotes is “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean”. This couldn’t be more true right now. Every little bit helps.

How were the other media partners selected?

Our investment team reached out to our key media partners and asked if they were able to work with us on the initiative. We have been humbled by the support we’ve received so far, and are now being contacted by more and more media suppliers since the launch of our campaign.

How were the charity partners selected?

All three have been our partners for many years and we have been supporting them in different ways. We have planned media campaigns for Dubai Cares, to promote many of their fundraising initiatives over the years, pro bono of course. We have partnered with Gulf for Good for four charity challenges in Africa and Asia. With them, our employees have trekked to Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, cycled from Vietnam to Cambodia and the latest being to cross the Mongolian desert by horse, bike, and foot. Last year, we raised around AED530,000 which, after costs, were distributed between an orphanage in Mongolia and MSF’s rehabilitation hospital in Amman. We have given regular advice to MSF on their marketing strategy and had planned to fundraise for them again this year, by cycling the seven Emirates with Gulf for Good. Unfortunately, this is now called into question.

It is only fitting that we continue to work with our partners to help them help others during a time when they need us the most.

How is OMG and the other media partners providing support? Can you explain the process?

Essentially OMG is the aggregator of all the free media space being supplied. Once media partners offer us their available inventory, we divide it equally between our charities. Our teams at OMD are also working on the creative development for MSF and Gulf for Good, which will be launched upon completion across multiple platforms, and share all the necessary post-campaign reports.

What do you hope to achieve from this initiative?

Our ultimate aim is for our partners to reach their fundraising goals. For Dubai Cares, it is to ensure educational support to 40,000 UAE low-income students. For Gulf for Good, it is to provide assistance to 2,000 children across Nepal, Uganda, Peru, Tanzania, and Lebanon. Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) are directly involved in working with health authorities to contribute towards the prevention of COVID-19 as well as tackling the outbreak.

The wide exposure they will receive during this campaign will also help with their longer-term sustainability as the awareness levels in the region will increase.