LAHORE: Manhattan International has appointed Fouad Husain as the new CEO of Omnicom Media Group in Pakistan.
The decision comes less than a year after Husain resigned from his position as CEO of GroupM, which he held since mid-2015. Sources told Profit that Husain may be expected to win the Unilever Pakistan media account for Omnicom Media Group, given that the British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company is holding a media review by Q2 2021 and Hindustan Unilever no longer have a say in which media agency the Pakistan team has to work with.
Prior to leading the world’s largest media investment firm, Husain spent nearly 15 years with Mindshare, across four different client servicing roles including as managing director for eight years. Led by Dara Bashir Khan, Manhattan International is a creative agency that owns the Omnicom Media Group franchise in Pakistan, which in turn serves clients of OMD and PHD – specialized media agencies under the holding group – in the country.
Before Husain, Sohail Ansar had joined Omnicom Media Group as executive director towards Q3 2018 and Arun Perwani had joined as chief operating officer towards Q4 2019 with both tasked to help the full-service agency group lead teams that would win and retain business.
GLOBAL BRAND PERCEPTION OF OMNICOM MEDIA GROUP
According to The Forrester Wave™ Global Media Agencies for Q2 2020, both OMD and PHD rank in the top ten, with OMD ranking high in terms of planning and buying, content development services, technology strategy, data strategy, media partner strategy, global billings, and agency headcount. The report found that PHD ranked high in terms of technology strategy, and data strategy.
“OMD is a good fit for CMOs looking for a connected communication experience,” said Forrester analysts Jay Pattisall, Keith Johnston, Alex Sobchuk, and Rachel Birrell who authored the report. “OMD shows strength with a unified planning team, the use of private marketplaces to procure preferred inventory, and resources dedicated to audience activation (although there is little evidence of widespread client adoption of said audience activation technology). Clients like OMD for its media planning, buying, and econometric models.”
The analysts said that PHD merges creative media planning with audience technology, with the agency credited with pioneering creative media planning. The report noted that PHD is expanding its investments in integrating its proprietary media planning platform to become fully interoperable within Omnicom’s audience targeting and delivery platform Omni.
“PHD is a good fit for CMOs looking to connect marketing execution with creative applications of media and connection planning,” said the report. “Compared with other agencies we evaluated, PHD shows strength in its resources for media planning, the adoption of audience activation technology, and its emphasis on female executive leadership. Clients like PHD for its flexible operating approach and willingness to partner with other agencies. They note PHD’s remit is TV focused and would like to see a more rigorous analytics and technology capacity.”
