What you need to know:

• After three years in Canada, GroupM executive Seb Rennie returns to Australia and his former role of Chief Investment Officer.
• Rennie tells Mi3 his return “made sense” from a personal and professional lens, assuming the role officially from June 20.
• Rennie is keen to apply his learnings from the North American region to the market.
• This includes helping to deliver the global strategic shift being pursued by GroupM boss Christian Juhl.
• Meanwhile, clients must prepare for a post tracking world.

Rennie returns

After three years heading up investment for GroupM Canada, Seb Rennie is ready to return to the market he “calls home”.

However, both Rennie and the market he returns to have experienced some changes in that time.

Prior to his exit, GroupM Australia was responsible for the media investment of more than $3bn in client spend and was one of the top performing agency groups.

If you’re to believe RECMA’s numbers, which GroupM does not submit to, that scenario has changed dramatically, along with its executive team.

Rennie replaces former CIO Nic Lewis, who, alongside CEO Mark Lollback and digital boss Venessa Hunt, is one of a number of recent departures.

Rennie is unfazed.

“The market's really robust and sophisticated when you compare it to a lot of other global markets – it doesn't shy away from innovation, which I think is to be applauded,” Rennie told Mi3.

While specifics will come when he's on the ground, "if we stick to the guiding principles of making sure that we're driving value for our clients, collaborating with our media partners and have an environment that staff can thrive in, then the rest will follow".

Tech crunch

Rennie is adamant the agency’s global mandate for a tech and data-led approach to client solutions is a must.

Driven by global CEO Christian Juhl, the media business is moving away from its legacy model, with the intention of operating “more like a software company”.

Rennie said this includes having a standardised, best practice, digital solution across the entire business.

“The world's digitised now more than ever, so it's important that we make sure that we have an executional support layer that can really provide value for our clients and for our agencies,” Rennie said.

Those close to the business have argued the key component to the digital transformation strategy, which was revealed to be underway earlier this year, will be media agency Essence.

Juhl’s prized child of the group, which has Google as a foundation client globally and is underpinned by a digital-first automated buying platform, is tipped to have its technology integrated into its sister agencies.

Rennie was hesitant to comment extensively on the company's plans for the agency but said he was “impressed” with what he’d seen.

Privacy first

Alongside the digital changes internally, Rennie said he will be working alongside the GroupM Australia team to help clients prepare for the imminent changes caused by the recent iOS 14.5 update and impending third-party "cookie crumble".

Despite his time out of the Australian market, Rennie has kept a "close eye" on the shifting tides within the local digital advertising industry and the larger moves by its regulatory bodies.

Additionally, he points out these issues are being discussed in most markets around the globe.

"If I look at the global trends, regulatory frameworks are being adjusted to focus more on consumer privacy, we've seen the iOS 14.5 changes come into play and we know that the cookie is going to crumble in the next year - that's something being discussed quite a lot with our clients now," Rennie said.

"We work with those digital players very effectively and are some of their biggest customers but we can leverage the expertise we have at a global level to drive local benefits for clients.

"We're doing a lot of testing and learning with them around how we make sure that we've got a standardised way of understanding what these changes are going to mean, for us and clients and how we adjust based on various country's regulatory frameworks."

The core component of this strategy is the newly launched WPP-owned global data company Choreograph which will take a "privacy-first approach" and is made up of specialist data units from GroupM and Wunderman Thompson.

WPP has touted the new business as offering first-party data management as a service – as well as analytics, data driven creative, media and AI-driven optimisation.

"What Choreograph is allowing us to do is make sure that we can provide a platform that lets clients' first party data drive the outcomes of business success in a responsible, compliant and effective way," Rennie said.

"We're taking a consultative approach with clients to try and help understand the data assets that they have available and then work out where the risks and opportunities lie moving forward."