Omnicom leadership has taken its share of lumps since closing on the acquisition of Interpublic Group at the end of 2025. But it didn’t stop Ralph Pardo, CEO of Omnicom Media North America, from speaking at Digiday’s spring Media Buying Summit, which is wrapping up today in Nashville.
Although careful with his choice of words in describing Omnicom’s integration of the IPG agencies and assets (particularly data giant Acxiom) into the mothership, Pardo said progress has been steady, in part because moving slowly simply isn’t an option anymore. (The need for speed was expressed generally across virtually all sessions at the summit.)
For now, the IPG Media brands will stay alive and active alongside the Omnicom brands, which was a “purposeful conscientious strategy,” he told attendees — but that may not last forever. The integration itself will take time, no matter how much speed can be applied.
“Our point of view is that clients still do value the agency relationship, that there is specificity and specialization and areas of expertise, and that ultimately, even if you think about just kind of managing multiple clients within a portfolio, we need specific homes and destinations for both clients to grow and brands to grow,“ explained Pardo, who’s been with Omnicom since 2012, coming up the ranks through OMD, BBDO and Hearts & Science.
The union also comes with its challenges, including cultural assimilation. “The hardest thing is, we have different cultures,” said Pardo. “We have different identities that have been built over many, many years. So how do you kind of bring those cultures together, where you’re able to have some degree of independent spirit and differentiation, but also some degree of centralization and consistency.”
Pardo took issue with the notion that holding companies are somehow slower than independent agencies — a point Digiday made in its opening State of the Industry assessment at the outset of the summit. “The pace of change and disruption requires us to constantly reevaluate and perhaps to take some degree of ownership position to myth bust the idea of a holding company as slow and bureaucratic,” he said. “I think it’s a cop out. It’s easy to say that, but let’s not forget how these companies were built. They were built on the back of innovation and the back of change and delivering a good product.”
Acknowledging that the tech platforms are the biggest competitor to the holding company model in their attempts to lure marketer dollars directly rather than through agencies, Pardo said he feels confident Omnicom won’t get disintermediated — and perhaps his fellow holdcos too.
“It maybe a slightly provocative point of view, but I’m not sure that these platforms, in aggregate, have done a great job in helping brands and businesses not just realize short-term gains, but build long-term equities,” he said. “Businesses realize that you can’t sustain your business entirely off a few places. It’s sort of a dial that you need to calibrate constantly. And I think that’s the role of a consultant, of a partner, and that’s the space that I think we as a collective industry occupy.”
Perhaps the biggest change Pardo said he’s seen over the last 5 to 10 years from clients is the steady disappearance of the brief. “I just don’t see that anymore. I think right now, most conversations are really around a business outcome or a business goal,” he noted, acknowledging that the role of a CMO is harder than ever. “Media has interestingly become just an origin point for conversations around technology, for conversations around personalization, that move into content. But generally, the conversations and the ask are more about how do we deliver a business outcome and what are the integrated capabilities we need to do that.”
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