The media agency UM Ireland, which is part of IPG Mediabrands, has rolled out a new market positioning called Futureproof which brings together a new agency model for clients, a refreshed approach to talent and a more “future-facing” lens on some of the cultural and ethical issues impacting the media and advertising industry.
“The beauty of Futureproof is that, by its very nature, it is constantly evolving. The theory behind it was forged by working with some of the world’s most exciting and future-facing brands, like Spotify, Fitbit and Just Eat – and will continue to develop as those brands find new challenges and we partner with them to address them,” says Alan Daly, managing director UM Ireland.
“Our promise to our clients is that we will never stand still. After the year we’ve just had, none of us will ever know for certain what’s around the corner. But whatever it is, we know we’ll be ready for it,” he adds.
According to Daly, it is an approach that has been refined and embedded over the past 12 months internally, designed to integrate with all of the agency tools and processes, and across key UM clients.
He says that the Futureproof planning process has already been crucial in helping clients such as Johnson & Johnson accelerate into digital and e-commerce, and to drive accelerated growth powered by a team of audience and shopper specialists.
“It has also enabled a more dynamic approach to planning, which transforms the speed in which campaigns are planned and executed by taking advantage of real time data signals to drive messaging,” he says.
UM’s proprietary global channel planning and optimization platform, Growth Accelerator, is central to the Futureproof planning process he says. In addition, data is also a crucial element.
“As the cookiless world beckons, UM has a strong competitive edge with its Acxiom partnership and other data partners – able to architect people-first data strategies and build authentic audiences that can be fully integrated with the agency planning tools and rolled out at speed,” Daly says.
“The final pillar of Futureproof is UM’s quest to have a meaningful impact on the advertising industry particularly when it comes to media ethics and sustainability. This can clearly be seen in IPGs recent Media Responsibility index which was recently published in Adworld.ie.”
