When PHD was first established in 1990, it took a different stance compared to the media agencies of the time, which were focused on buying and clout. Instead, it emphasized strategic planning and out-thinking competitors. In today’s world, where the focus is on the power of technology and data, PHD applies strategic and creative thinking on top of that, using technology and data as a creative canvas to create transformative experiences. There is no better example of this layering of strategy and creativity than in the way PHD has customized the Omni open operating system that supports all Omnicom agencies, and powers OMG’s Agency as a Platform model.

Building on Omni, PHD has developed a planning OS called Studio that transforms the entire communication strategy and planning process.

Studio allows for strategists to collaborate across markets to create campaigns online. The entire platform has been built from the ground up based on game mechanics, encouraging collaboration and resulting in 70,000 unique ideas generated by the global PHD community –including people who don’t work on the account. In essence, joining PHD is like joining an MMOG (a massively multiplayer online game), where the better you are at the game, the more you and your country rise on the leaderboard. Each week, 70% of account teams, strategists, and planners come into the platform. Here’s a small selection of the work – and results – that came out of this always-on brainstorm in 2023.

Over the past year the Omni Studio has significantly expanded its commerce capabilities to ensure a full funnel ecosystem that enables PHD to deliver on one of the most critical priorities for marketers today. Boosted by the launch of Omni Commerce – the industry’s first connected commerce orchestration solution – Omni Studio can now provide always-on insight, activation, optimization, and attribution across the entire commerce landscape, breaking down the silos between commerce and brand investment to enable seamless decisioning. Powered by Omnicom Media Group’s portfolio of retail media network partners – including Albertson’s, Amazon, Instacart, Kroger, Uber, Tesco and Walmart – and data vendors, Omni Commerce’s depth of data categories (media performance, operations, content, product inventory and sales) provides a single, standardized yet customizable view of the commerce journey – not only across commerce and brand investment, but also across retailers, and online/offline environments as well.

Eight years before Open AI launched the generative AI era, PHD was well ahead of the brave new world curve with this deep dive into the potential – and potential pitfalls – of AI. And with good reason.  As PHD Chief Strategy Officer and lead Sentience author Mark Holden predicted in the book’s first chapter, “Although AI has largely been the domain of academics and large internet companies, it’s starting to trickle down into the consumer sphere, and that’s where the most noticeable applications will present themselves. Those applications will be largely ad-supported, meaning that marketing will be one of the first disciplines disrupted by AI.” As early thought leaders in the category, it’s not surprising then that PHD has been adept at leveraging machine learning to drive better outcomes for its clients.

When OMG’s Annalect data and analytics leveraged Omnicom’s first-mover access to Open AI to launch Omni Assist – a generative AI virtual assistant that provides insights, recommendations and notifications to reduce the time from planning to activation – PHD saw an opportunity to take that capability to the next level.

With Omni Assist integrated within Omni, PHD is taking it further by incorporating it into studio to provide a range of cognitive assistants for desk research, strategic crystallization, and lateral thinking. This virtual team of AIs co-pilots strategy development, with each underpinned by carefully crafted prompts that enable the AI to generate remarkable thinking. And a reinforcement learning functionality, in the form of a user-level thumbs up/thumbs down mechanism, allows the AI to learn over time and tailor its prompts to each client, creating increasingly relevant brand campaigns.

The Omni Studio AI application is currently in beta and will launch companywide in early 2024. In the meantime, to ensure the brands we serve have the knowledge and comfort they need to unlock the power of generative AI to enhance marketing effectiveness, we are partnering with Annalect to conduct day-long AI workshops with our clients’ extended marketing teams.

In 2023, PHD’s Global President, Francesca Hills led the development and launch of OMG Momentum, the ESG platform serving all OMG agencies. OMG Momentum is an industry first – an end-to-end solution that operationalizes Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-driven investment. Housed within Omni Studio and aggregating the best ESG tools and activations from across the network, OMG Momentum includes a global shared knowledge database; private sustainability and DE+I marketplaces; and customized tools for planning, optimization and measurement.  Standouts in the Momentum portfolio include:

• The DE&I and Sustainability Planning and Activation Certification program that equips teams with the skills to successfully infuse DE&I and Sustainability into every stage of media planning and buying.
• A Carbon Calculator that enables teams to estimate the carbon emissions of media plans per channel. The tool can be used to set emissions benchmarks to track emissions over time, compare campaigns emissions, and can serve as a guide to reduce carbon emissions through various media channel combinations.
• A carbon scenario optimization tool that is integrated into Omni Studio to help teams optimize media plans to lower emissions while maintaining performance.
• The Diverse Creator Network is a purpose-driven initiative that advances investment in diverse creators, influencers, and minority owned and operated media. DCN drives marketplace results, while increasing access to media investments for a greater number of self-publishing media entrepreneurs who create content across digital platforms and owned channels.
• The Sustainability and DE&I supplier index that helps teams evaluate media partners that align most with clients’ ESG goals. This detailed assessment considers a wide range of sustainability topics, including commitment to the environment social impact; content; and ethics.
• Sustainability and DE&I Marketplaces that provides clients with a unique opportunity to access inventory that not only delivers the best price but also supports publishers striving for sustainability goals such as carbon neutrality or diversity-based objectives like minority-owned businesses.

Deploying the OMG Momentum suite of solutions, planners can deliver media strategies that support and advance clients’ sustainability and DE&I ambitions, as well as their media and business KPIs. In other words, it allows our clients to be accountable to the planet, to society, and to their shareholders. And it holds us accountable for the commitments that we have made as part of Ad Net Zero.

While one generation of leaders is defining the future, the next generation must be prepared to lead in it.  That’s the goal of PHD Learn, our self-service learning and development portal.

It consists of two key elements: a competency framework, that tells our people which skillsets are needed to succeed in every role; and training to match each competency. The competency-based framework enables us to hire against and evaluate performance to ensure we deliver actionable outcomes and accelerated knowledge.

In essence, it’s about building a foundation of shared expectations around team members’ skills and performance, which gives development plans a common framework.

Within each framework, there are levels of mastery, from foundation (which is entry level, new or learning in the role) through to Expert (being a recognized authority), explaining WHAT individuals need to do and HOW they need to do it.

Additionally, all PHD professionals have access to OMG’s global Learning & Development initiatives, designed to support personal growth and development at every stage of the career path.

The impact of these initiatives can be seen in two key – and interconnected – metrics: responses to our most recent employee engagement survey, in which our commitment to professional development was given high marks, and our steadily declining turnover rate, which is projected at 28% for 2023 – an 8-point improvement vs 2022, and below the industry average of 30%.