The recent merger between Omnicom and Publicis Groupe, the world's two biggest advertising holding companies, has led to a paradigm shift in the international advertising market that has affected all agencies, including OMD, Omnicom's media communications agency. Joan Jordi Vallverdú spoke about this during his talk at the UIC's Faculty of Communication Sciences.

Throughout the talk, Vallverdú focused primarily on explaining how a media agency works, with a special emphasis on the strategic and creative sides of the business. He also highlighted the capacity of these organizations to solve the specific communication problems encountered by advertisers. He said, “At media agencies, we research consumers in order to bring commercial brands closer to their audience in the most effective way possible”. He went on to say, “Emotions make it possible to increase creativity, productivity and empathy”.

Vallverdú spent a significant part of the session analysing the top five trends among media agencies (content, consumer, technology, mobility and high-touch marketing) and illustrated each one with campaigns created by OMD Worldwide, the company behind the Vodafone campaign “Connecting Spain” and the Absolut Vodka campaign “The Sound of Absolut”. He also pointed out that the determining factors of a media agency’s performance are people, innovation, technology, transparency, strength and confidence.