O’Connell is “able to really understand what it means to be a modern media practitioner, but also understand how to thread the divide that exists for many marketers today,” Pardo said. She will become a close partner to the group’s leadership team, illuminating OMG client issues, barriers and concerns, he added.
Converging practice areas
Industry research is paramount, given how many vastly different practice areas today’s marketing leaders must oversee, and how quickly media trends evolve. O’Connell comes to the role prepared to advise brand marketers, having researched topics for the CMO throughout her career.
“A role like this one that allows me to partner with the whole ecosystem of OMG and be able to help shape how clients experience the world around them. There are tiny little things that they need to worry about on the day-to-day, and then there are big giant things that they need to worry about, and big giant opportunities that exist around corners,” O’Connell said.
Figuring out what’s around those corners is what excited the analyst, who said she’s prepared to tell clients hard things when that’s necessary. “Being able to ground [the role] in the practical reality of what brands are struggling with and trying to achieve every day is actually the best-case scenario, because it means that it feels real to them. It feels truthful and honest and helpful,” she said.
In OMG, O’Connell saw an opportunity to continue her industry research and simultaneously develop a better understanding of agencies’ relationships with their clients. She became intrigued by OMG while at R3, having observed how it won the L’Oréal account, a review R3 oversaw in 2022.
The group’s “agency-as-a-platform” approach involves using group resources to supplement individual agency offerings. O’Connell’s role will function within that organizational structure, and she’ll work in tandem with other leaders across OMG and its three media agencies to advise clients.
“We believe in the strength of agencies. We also believe that there is benefit that the group can enable. I think this is a real good example of an area where a group is coming together to enable benefits that everybody can apply on their own,” Pardo told Adweek.
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