LmCast :: Stay tuned in

Omnicom Downsizes But OmniPlusses; VCs Aren’t Buying Dotcoms

Recorded: Dec. 2, 2025, 7:02 a.m.

Original Summarized

Omnicom Downsizes But OmniPlusses; VCs Aren’t Buying Dotcoms | AdExchanger

image/svg+xml:

Topics
Latest
Marketers
Agencies
Publishers
Technology
Platforms
Identity
Measurement
Data Privacy
Artificial Intelligence
CTV
Commerce
AdExplainer
Exclusive Report
Daily News Roundup

Opinion
All Columns
Data-Driven Thinking
On TV & Video
The Sell Sider
Content Studio
Comic
Contributor Guidelines

About Us
Advertise
Newsletter
AdExchanger Advisory Board
About Us
Contact Us

Events
Programmatic I/O New York
AdExchanger Awards
Webinars
All Events
Network Events

Podcasts
AdExchanger Talks
The Big Story
Inside the Stack

Programmatic I/O New York

Become an AdHero

Subscribe

Sign In

Sign In

Topics
Latest
Marketers
Agencies
Publishers
Technology
Platforms
Identity
Measurement
Data Privacy
Artificial Intelligence
CTV
Commerce
AdExplainer
Exclusive Report
Daily News Roundup

Opinion
All Columns
Data-Driven Thinking
On TV & Video
The Sell Sider
Content Studio
Comic
Contributor Guidelines

Events & Awards
Programmatic I/O New York
AdExchanger Awards
Webinars
All Events
Network Events

Podcasts
AdExchanger Talks
The Big Story
Inside the Stack

Subscribe Free
Sign Up

About Us
Advertise
Newsletter
AdExchanger Advisory Board
About Us
Contact Us

CONNECT

Home Daily News Roundup Omnicom Downsizes But OmniPlusses; VCs Aren’t Buying Dotcoms

Daily News Roundup
Omnicom Downsizes But OmniPlusses; VCs Aren’t Buying Dotcoms By AdExchanger

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025 – 12:03 am
SHARE:



Agents Of Change
Shrinking is a necessary part of growth – that is, according to Omnicom, which is consolidating after absorbing fellow holding company IPG.
IPG had already cut thousands of jobs prior to the merger, and now Omnicom estimates that about 4,000 more positions will be eliminated.
Florian Adamski, CEO of Omnicom Media Group, describes the decision to Adweek as “building a company for the future,” rather than “eradicating jobs.”

And it’s not just individual roles that are being eradicated (er, sorry, that are “building a company for the future”); it’s entire brands, too.
The creative agencies FCB, DDB and MullenLowe will “cease to exist” as independent companies. As has happened with WPP’s creative fleet, these long-time agency names will instead roll into one of Omnicom’s three surviving global ad agencies: TBWA, BBDO, and McCann. (FCB will fall under BBDO, while DDB and MullenLowe join TBWA.)
On a brighter note (for advertisers, at least), OmniPlus, a new end-to-end operating system, will launch in early 2026. The OmniPlus product, according to CTO Paolo Yuvienco, is “by far, bar none, the most elite data set in the world.”
Definitely no hyperbole there.
No Cap(ital)
Publishers aren’t just losing web traffic to AI overviews; they’re also losing out on interest from potential buyers and investors, reports Digiday.
According to data from PitchBook, there have been fewer venture capital deals with publishing companies (both print and digital) in 2025 compared to this time last year. 
Most of that activity has been focused on newsletter-based media ventures and tech platforms – like Substack, which raised $100 million in VC funding in July, and Air Mail, which was bought by newsletter publisher Puck in September.
So far, deal sizes are higher than they were in 2024 (although Paramount’s $150 million acquisition of The Free Press in October may be an outlier there). Several analysts that Digiday spoke to say that, overall, investors are holding back and making lower offers.
Why? Because they’re unsure how publishers will respond to the looming threat of AI and whether their sites will find new ways to effectively monetize audiences.
Right now, the whole category looks like a falling knife.  
Many publishers are building new revenue pillars, such as creator or influencer programs, as well as podcasts and video content. But it’s too early to know if those strategies will amount to anything substantial – and, possibly, too late to save the revenue that’s already been lost. 
Don’t Aggregate The Player, Aggregate The Game
There is a strong belief – more substantiated than mere speculation – that ChatGPT will soon introduce an ads business model. 
Most ChatGPT users would probably prefer that OpenAI not, please. But for many business analysts observing the AI category, the feeling is, “What are you waiting for already?”
Google took only two years to begin advertising on its search engine. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and introduced ads in 2015. OpenAI’s “refusal” to launch an ads product, as put by Ben Thompson at Stratechery, “is a dereliction of business duty.” 
As Thompson argues, ChatGPT competes with companies like Google and Meta, which gain their strength fundamentally from the number of individual everyday users. The best business model fit for this aggregator model is advertising. This stands in contrast to Microsoft or Apple, which he describes as aggregating services and business, then taking a cut of the platform economy. 
Google doesn’t even have to offer a superior product. ChatGPT may practically dethrone itself “by refusing to adopt an Aggregator’s optimal business model.”
But Wait! There’s More
After 18 years, John Halley will leave his position as president of Paramount Advertising. [Variety] 
How David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto czar, almost made a play to preempt state AI laws across the country.  [The Verge] 
Recent surveys by the Census Bureau and others suggest AI adoption at work is stagnating, or bifurcating. One survey by Dayforce found executives (87%) and managers (57%) are far more likely to use AI on the job than workers (27%). [The Economist]
Researchers confirm that increasing the prevalence of “partisan animosity” in a user’s X feed leads to a marked increase in political polarization, and that reducing such content prevalence has the opposite effect. [Science]
You’re Hired
Outfront Media hires Stacy Minero as chief marketing and experience officer and Abhi Vyas as VP of performance marketing. [Variety]
Check My Ads hires EU digital policy scholar Dr. Aleksandre Zardiashvili (aka Lex Zard) as director of policy. [release]

Next In Daily News Roundup

Is Enshittification Really Such A Bad Thing?; The Android Beta Reveal

Related Stories

Daily News Roundup
The Futile Search For Google Search Remedies; Agents Of Change

Daily News Roundup
Sponsorships Still Win In Niche Sports; For AI Ads, Perplexity’s No Google

Daily News Roundup
Ding-Dong, Your Short-Form Video Is Here; The Payback Payouts

Daily News Roundup
Google Goes Three Times Lucky; Blocklisting The Academy

Must Read

Technology
How AudienceMix Is Mixing Up The Data Sales Business

AudienceMix, a new curation startup, aims to make it more cost effective to mix and match different audience segments using only the data brands need to execute their campaigns.

Digital Out-Of-Home
Broadsign Acquires Place Exchange As The DOOH Category Hits Its Stride

On Tuesday, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad tech startup Place Exchange was acquired by Broadsign, another out-of-home SSP.

Social Media
Meta’s Ad Platform Is Going Haywire In Time For The Holidays (Again)

For the uninitiated, “Glitchmas” is our name for what’s become an annual tradition when, from between roughly late October through November, Meta’s ad platform just seems to go bonkers.

antitrust
Closing Arguments Are Done In The US v. Google Ad Tech Case

The publisher-focused DOJ v. Google ad tech antitrust trial is finished. A judge will now decide the fate of Google’s sell-side ad tech business.

Programmatic
Wall Street Wants To Know What The Programmatic Drama Is About

Competitive tensions and ad tech drama have flared all year. And this drama has rippled out into the investor circle, as evident from a slew of recent ad tech company earnings reports.

Platforms
Omnicom Allegedly Pivoted A Chunk Of Its Q3 Spend From The Trade Desk To Amazon

Two sources at ad tech platforms that observe programmatic bidding patterns said they’ve seen Omnicom agencies shifting spend from The Trade Desk to Amazon DSP in Q3. The Trade Desk denies any such shift.

Popular

OPINION: Data-Driven Thinking
CTV Is Less Transparent Than YouTube. That Should Alarm Everyone

CTV spending is flattening, performance is plateauing and buyers are hesitant to push budgets further. The reason is not complicated. When buyers cannot see what they are buying, they cannot commit their spend with conviction.

Marketers
Here's How Manscaped Groomed Its Brand For Long-Term Growth

Manscaped’s CMO Marcelo Kertész on flipping its strategy from quick-win performance marketing to building a lasting brand with smarter, long-term growth.

Social Media
Meta’s Ad Platform Is Going Haywire In Time For The Holidays (Again)

For the uninitiated, “Glitchmas” is our name for what’s become an annual tradition when, from between roughly late October through November, Meta’s ad platform just seems to go bonkers.

Digital Out-Of-Home
Broadsign Acquires Place Exchange As The DOOH Category Hits Its Stride

On Tuesday, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad tech startup Place Exchange was acquired by Broadsign, another out-of-home SSP.

PODCAST: AdExchanger Talks
Making Your Brand Matter To The Models

You can’t buy your way to the top of a large-language model. At least not yet. But there are things that brands can do to influence how – and if – they get mentioned, says Tracy Morrissey, SVP of media and performance at full-service agency Innocean USA.

Join the AdExchanger Community
Join Now

Your trusted source for in-depth programmatic news, views, education and events.
AdExchanger is where marketers, agencies, publishers and tech companies go for the latest information on the trends that are transforming digital media and marketing, from data, privacy, identity and AI to commerce, CTV, measurement and mobile.

NEXT EVENT
Most Powerful Women
December 4, 2025CurrentNew York, NY
Learn More

ABOUT ADEXCHANGER
About Us
Advertise
Contact Us
Events
Subscribe
RSS
Cookie Settings
Privacy & Terms
Accessibility
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging

CONNECT

© 2025 Access Intelligence, LLC - All Rights Reserved

Omnicom is undergoing a significant restructuring, a shift driven by both strategic consolidation and the evolving pressures within the digital advertising landscape. The company’s decision to integrate several of its long-standing creative agencies – FCB, DDB, and MullenLowe – into its remaining global ad agencies – TBWA, BBDO, and McCann – represents a fundamental reshaping of its operational structure. This move, as described by Omnicom Media Group CEO Florian Adamski, is framed as “building a company for the future,” a justification that many observers see as a necessary adaptation to the changing demands of the market. The elimination of these agency brands exemplifies a broader trend within the holding company sector – a move to streamline operations and reduce redundancies in an era of increased competition and technological disruption, particularly with the rise of AI.

A key element of this restructuring is the introduction of OmniPlus, a new end-to-end operating system spearheaded by CTO Paolo Yuvienco. OmniPlus is positioned as possessing “bar none” the most elite dataset in the world. This focus on data—specifically, the claim of holding a superior dataset—highlights a critical strategic bet within Omnicom. This reflects a larger industry trend, wherein companies are intensely focused on data acquisition and utilization as the primary driver for competitive advantage. The push towards data-driven decision making and optimization is a direct response to the increasing sophistication of AI and the demand for greater measurability within the advertising ecosystem.

However, the changes also raise concerns about the industry’s trajectory. The reluctance of venture capitalists to invest heavily in publishing companies, as reported by Digiday, points to significant anxieties within the market. The shift in investment away from traditional publishing ventures—towards newsletter-based media and tech platforms like Substack—demonstrates a clear devaluation of traditional media models. Furthermore, the prevailing belief that ChatGPT will soon introduce an ads business model, and the implications of OpenAI's apparent hesitation to do so, suggests a rapidly approaching disruption. Ben Thompson’s argument, echoing a common sentiment, is that OpenAI’s reluctance to adopt an aggregator’s optimal business model is a “dereliction of business duty,” implying that this tech giant’s refusal to monetize its massive user base through advertising is a strategic misstep with potentially profound consequences.

The broader industry trends – slowing investment in publishing, the growing expectation of AI-driven advertising, and the potential for ChatGPT to fundamentally alter the advertising landscape – create a challenging environment for established players like Omnicom. The planned departure of John Halley, President of Paramount Advertising, after 18 years, simply underscores the seismic shifts underway within the media and advertising sectors. The parallel observations regarding stagnant AI adoption, bifurcated usage rates (with executives and managers leading the way), and the connection between increased partisan animosity on social media and political polarization, further contextualize the industry’s precarious position. These insights, pulled from sources like the Census Bureau, The Economist, and Science, are not merely peripheral observations but rather critical pieces of an evolving puzzle. Finally, the news regarding staffing decisions—the hiring of Stacy Minero and Abhi Vyas at Outfront Media, and Dr. Aleksandre Zardiashvili at Check My Ads—highlights a continued effort by the industry to adapt to the new normal, albeit within a landscape dominated by disruptive forces.