Retail media has grown to become one of marketers’ most important areas of emphasis as brands shift to performance-based marketing and emphasize consumer data in their media investments. IPG Mediabrands’ global agency UM has been a leader in the retail and commerce space throughout its evolution, and is reaping the wins now that advertisers are focusing on commerce.

UM Commerce, an in-house unit devoted to retail media investment, increased billings from $1 billion to more than $2 billion in 2023, and increased participating clientele 100% to more than 40 globally. The agency has been a leader in developing new capabilities in the space, such as its Shoptimizer tool that automates planning, buying and analysis of retail media buys. Overall, UM increased revenue by 3% in 2023 to approximately $530 to $540 million.

UM’s start-to-finish integration of commerce in media buying is a differentiator for the agency, said UM Global CEO Andrea Suarez, who was appointed to the role last June. “The integration for clients needs to be seamless because it’s one budget for clients, one set of goals,” said Suarez.

The agency’s capabilities were key to major wins last year, such as leading IPG Mediabrands’ Geico media account win as well as UM’s media win with General Mills. According to Erin Quintana, UM’s U.S. CEO who led the General Mills pitch, “The way that consumers are shopping, particularly in the food category, changed so dramatically during COVID … [commerce-driven marketing] is a place where if they do not win, they’re not going to win. We really were able to identify strategies for them to grow in the commerce space in particular.”

One UM

UM values its people more than any tech innovations. As the industry begins shifting to greater automation and competing with the rise of AI technology—Suarez said that by 2025, 75% of all media plans will be automated and 75% of all content will be created by AI—talent is what can differentiate the agency. Suarez said her first months as global CEO were spent analyzing major industry trends around tech to compete with the oncoming saturation of AI-driven work.

“If machines are rising, we need to rise higher, putting our intelligence at the core of what we do,” said Suarez. She said human intelligence is primarily “what is going to allow us to drive insights that are different because if we leave everything in the hands of machines we’re going to have no differentiation whatsoever.”

As such, the global agency has been reorienting its structure around a new One UM structure, which seeks to unify UM’s workforce across the 100 markets it operates in. Suarez said the structure has created new momentum for talent to want to be part of pitches for new business and participate in areas of business outside of an employee’s office location, as well as creating cross-network resources for talent.

DE&I

UM has also been a leader in industry efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion. Internally, the agency said 58% of new hires in 2023 identified as people of color and that 41% of employees are diverse. 

Externally, UM has participated in numerous efforts to grow ad investment in diverse-owned media partners. Alongside sibling agency Magna, UM hosts the annual Equity Upfront, and has participated in new efforts to make equitable investment more accessible, such as an initiative with Roku to make audience measurement for diverse-owned media companies accessible to clients.

For Kenvue’s Zyrtec brand, the agency partnered with Kevin Hart’s media company, Hartbeat Productions, to create a custom content series targeting the pharmaceutical brand’s Black and Hispanic audience targets. The allergy season campaign enlisted diverse comedians as well as a partnership with minority-owned campground Camp Yoshi to distribute the series across digital video and social platforms, gaining 7.6 million video views and increasing brand familiarity by nine points, according to the agency.