Omnicom just finalized its $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group, creating the world’s largest advertising holding company based on revenue. There’s no word yet on how Creo, Omnicom’s influencer marketing arm, will be impacted by the deal.
Omnicom executives told the Financial Times on Monday that the company will cut 4,000 jobs and shutter some historic brands, including advertising and marketing agencies MullenLowe, FCB and DDB as part of the acquisition. No changes to Creo’s operations have been announced.
When we asked Omnicom for details about how the deal impacts Creo, a spokesperson said it remains an important asset for the company. Ahead of the deal closing, Creo was preparing to expand its team with more than 30 new roles.
No news about Creo is likely good news for brands, creators and the future of influencer marketing.
Omnicom’s competitors Publicis and WPP have been snapping up influencer marketing agencies as creators have become a bigger part of advertising strategies. Omnicom has so far taken a different approach to bolstering its capabilities: In April, it consolidated all of its influencer marketing efforts under the Creo brand, giving all clients globally access to its influencer marketing tools and technologies, which include data partnerships with the social platforms. The move also made influencer marketing a key part of Omnicom’s offering.
The OMG-IPG layoffs come at an already difficult time for ad agencies as their business models are under pressure from the growing dominance of big tech companies and the rise of AI. Both threaten to undermine the role of ad agencies.
Earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, set off alarm bells among ad agency executives when he said the company aims to fully automate advertising by next year. Over 4 million advertisers already use at least one of Meta’s generative AI ad creation tools, per the company’s first quarter earnings report. But many of these are likely small and medium-sized businesses as big brands are more hesitant to hand over full control of their ad campaigns to Meta.
As we reported last month, Meta and other social companies have also started to play a bigger role in influencer marketing. But so far, their efforts have been mostly limited to paid amplification of creator content as their attempts to negotiate deals between creators and brands have largely fallen flat.
That’s partly because influencer marketing is still a largely unstandardized process, which often requires a human touch. While many brands want to bring their influencer operations in house, their lack of expertise and ability to execute influencer campaigns at scale have been some of the roadblocks.
Brands are also wary of automating influencer marketing entirely: 39% of global marketers did not want AI to fully replace managing creator relationships, according to an October report from CreatorIQ. But they were more open to automating other tasks, such as finding influencers, coming up with ideas and generating content.
Taken together, that suggests that agencies will remain critical to influencer marketing, at least for now. That’s not to say that the model doesn’t need to adapt to a world where AI is making content cheaper, easier and quicker to create. At the same time, brands want more visibility, accountability and scale for their influencer marketing investments.
The one exception could be independent influencer marketing agencies. The Omnicom-IPG deal brings even more consolidation to influencer marketing. That could further squeeze small and mid-size agencies, which already face stiff competition for clients. This may lead them to look for buyers themselves or try to acquire their smaller competitors.
In other news…
LinkedIn’s Algo Allegations
LinkedIn is facing allegations of gender bias in its algorithm after some female users found that switching to male profiles and changing the language of their posts to sound more male significantly increased their views. That’s not a good look for LinkedIn, which is a core platform for B2B—and increasingly B2C—creators to build their personal brands and businesses.
But it’s not exactly a new problem. There have long been anecdotes about LinkedIn’s algorithm reportedly rewarding posts with male-coded writing styles, like clickbaity hooks, business buzzwords and an assertive tone. (It doesn’t help that many LinkedIn users write their posts with the help of ChatGPT, which uses a similar style).
In response, LinkedIn issued a statement saying that gender is not an algorithmic signal. But LinkedIn’s algorithm may not have to explicitly have to favor posts from one gender in order to create a bias, or at least the perception of one: 56.9% of LinkedIn users are male, per Hootsuite, meaning that the content users see—and that the algorithm is learning from—is likely to skew male. For comparison, Instagram is 55% female.
And the allegations come amid other algorithmic changes, including LinkedIn serving weeks-old posts, which creators say have led to declines in reach and impressions. Comments, however, are up 24% year over year, per parent company Microsoft’s latest earnings report.
The Round Up
Instagram is requiring most US employees to return to the office five days a week starting in February, the Sources newsletter first reported. In a memo to staff, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri also called for fewer meetings and more product prototypes. Read: Less talking, more doing.
TikTok apologized after Australian creators shared their experiences of alleged racism at the TikTok Awards event in Sydney. TikTok will host a US version of this event in Los Angeles on Dec. 18.
Warner Music Group reached a settlement with AI music startup Suno and announced a new partnership. Financial details were not disclosed, but the partnership includes new licensing models and limitations on downloads of content from Suno, where users can generate custom songs from text prompts. The agreement comes amid a surge of AI-generated audio across streaming platforms.
Panels, the custom wallpaper app founded by top tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, is shutting down at the end of the month. “We knew it was niche, but we made mistakes in making our first app, and ultimately we weren’t able to turn it into the vision that I’d had,” Brownlee said in an unlisted YouTube video. When Panels launched last September, it received backlash from fans and users who thought its $12 monthly subscription fee was too high.
Oxford’s word of the year is actually two words: rage bait. Oxford explained that this year’s news cycle was “dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing.” Oxford said the use of rage bait now represents a “deeper” shift in how we talk about attention, engagement and ethics online. It also said use of the phrase increased threefold over the past 12 months.
YouTube Yarns
• YouTube launched its own version of Spotify Wrapped on Tuesday. Users can see their top channels, interests and viewing habits based on their watch history.
The company also released its End Of Year Trending Lists. The most popular trending topics this year included KPop Demon Hunters, Charlie Kirk and Labubus. The top three podcasts were “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Kill Tony” and “Good Mythical Morning.” The No. 1 creator, to no surprise, was MrBeast. He was followed by CaylusBlox, a Roblox-focused creator, and streamer IShowSpeed.
• NBCUniversal is partnering with YouTube to send a group of creators and sports personalities to the 2026 Winter Olympics, including Cleo Abram, Kylie Kelce and Olympians Adam Rippon and Tara Woodall.
• YouTube is also testing a new feature called “Your custom feed,” which lets users customize recommendations on their home feed. It’s an effort to give people more control over content suggested to them.
Regulatory Woes
The European Parliament called for an EU-wide minimum age limit of 16 to use social media, as well video-sharing platforms and AI companions that “present risks to minors”, unless those minors have parental consent. The move follows Australia’s social media ban for under 16-year olds, which is set to go into effect on Dec. 10 and does not have an exemption for parental consent. As we wrote last month, if the EU implements such a law, it could be more damaging to the social platforms’ businesses than Australia’s ban.
The Digital Freedom Project has filed a constitutional challenge against Australia’s social media ban, arguing that the law violates free speech. Plaintiffs in the case are two 15-year olds, who are among the more than 1 million Australian minors set to lose access to their social media accounts this month. Free speech infringement is a familiar argument that has been at least somewhat successful in places like Florida, where a federal judge temporarily blocked Governor DeSantis’ teen social media ban for “likely” violating the First Amendment.
Meta, TikTok and other large social media companies will be held liable for financial fraud on their platforms for the first time under new EU rules.
Talent Tracker
Ziad Ojakli is the new head of public policy for the Americas at TikTok. He replaces Michael Beckerman, the company’s longtime policy chief who was a central figure in its fight against the US ban. Beckerman has moved into a global advisory role. Ojakli, who previously held senior policy positions at Ford, SoftBank and Boeing, started on Monday, roughly two weeks before TikTok’s latest extended deadline to sell its US operations. (Kaya was the first to report that Beckerman would leave his role earlier this year.)
Greg Goodfried joined Creative Artists Agency as an agent in its Creators division. In 2020, Goodfriend left UTA, where he was co-head of its digital talent division, to lead the businesses of the TikTok-famous D’Amelio family. Most recently, he was CEO of talent management firm DamGood Management. Jamie Guggenheim, previously a manager at DamGood Management, will also join CAA Creators as an agent.
Since launching the CAA Creators division earlier this year, the agency has also been busy expanding its talent roster, which includes clients ranging from digital media studios like Mythical to athletes such as two-time Olympian Jordan Chiles. Last week, CAA signed Airrack, the YouTuber with 17.5 million subscribers who is best known for challenges and prank content.
Lucas Kollmann stepped down as CEO of LunarX, a digital media studio he co-founded, which acquires YouTube channels. He is moving into a board position as a non-executive chair. Clemens Semelmayer, who has been the company’s managing director since late 2024, is now CEO.
