PHOENIX — What changes when “the most-quoted in advertising” goes in-house? Not much, says Brian Wieser.
In seven years a Pivotal Research, a Wall Street equity analyst firm, Wieser carved out a reputation – as senior research analyst – for sharp insight in to the worlds of media and advertising.
Now he has been hired by GroupM, WPP’s media investment arm, as global president for business intelligence.
So, how will things be different for Portland-based Wieser?
“Maybe not so different in some ways than the work I did when I was at Pivotal Research,” he tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “But much more centered around what our clients need – which is to say, many of the world’s largest marketers.
“I’ll never claim to know as much as the individual practitioners about what they do on a day to day basis, but I hopefully helped to put it all together in a big thematic view about how everything is evolving.”
GroupM is tasking Wieser with expanding its “thought leadership practice”. According to the company’s announcement: “He will collaborate with GroupM’s agencies and WPP’s broader network to gather, analyze and distribute actionable marketplace intelligence that gives clients insights on markets, audiences, partners and platforms, and supply and demand dynamics.”
Wieser’s affection for agencies isn’t news. Last year, while the market turned bearish on under-pressure agency groups, Wieser told Beet.TV the agencies are “cockroaches, not dinosaurs” – meaning, they will survive.
“I do think that, as they’ve been investing more against what clients really need, that there is an opportunity to resume growth back towards kind of a normal level that we used to see in prior years,” he says.
“Even when I had ‘sell’ recommendations on all of the stocks in the sector, I think there were temporal issues, if you will, and that played out. Most of the group has established something different, or at least they’ve started to invest more heavily (to match clients’ needs).”
This segment is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2019, Phoenix. This series is sponsored by Telaria. Please find additional videos from the series on this page.
