XM’s New Head of Integrated Media Sourcing Aims to Give Clients More Control, Leverage – “It’s All About Better Results for Our Clients”
Matt Bayer views his new role at Crossmedia (XM) as a win for clients who want more transparency and accountability around their media buys.
“Our clients are our priority,” he said. “It’s all about giving them maximum leverage and control and shifting the paradigm so media buys are client- and outcome-based.”
Crossmedia U.S. Co-Founder and CEO Kamran Asghar recently named Bayer to the newly created position of head of integrated media sourcing. “This appointment underscores our commitment to channel neutral, data-driven buying,” Asghar said.
Reporting directly to Asghar, Bayer will be the centralized leader across all the agency’s media activations. His responsibilities will span the agency planning and buying teams and extend to the greater media inventory marketplace.
He wants to align media buys to the strategic goals and objectives of XM clients because it will help drive the best possible results.
Crossmedia’s business model revolves around its total neutrality and 100% transparency. The agency does not take kickbacks or rebates from media or sell its own inventory or arbitrage. It prioritizes outcomes and takes a channel neutral approach to all media.
It also uses a data forward, audience-first approach to evaluate the ways media is sourced, including linear, addressable, programmatic, cross-platform, and direct. It calls its buying model “any source.”
“Because Crossmedia is independent and privately owned, we can we can deliver a solution that is not only client-centric, but bleeding edge,” he said. “Our independence ensures that we’re agnostic and enables us to approach media in a true any source fashion.”
Before joining XM this past October, Bayer spent six years in roles of increasing responsibility at Cadreon, IPG Mediabrands’ Ad Tech unit. Notably, he spent four years as a senior vice president, building and leading the company’s Advanced TV practice. Earlier in his career Bayer held various roles across video strategy and activation, addressable, advanced advertising, and emerging media/channels at Carat USA.
Bayer is enthusiastic about the opportunity at XM. He said he plans to work on behalf of the agency’s clients to grow a market leading solution — an open source, audience-centric, and outcome-based model — and advance the integration of traditional investment with a marketplace-based trading approach.
“We’re going to improve business outcomes for our clients,” he explained. “That means accounting for every dollar we spend while driving measurable, incremental business growth. We intend to use data, particularly data from Redbox, our advanced analytics practice, to make the best media buys for the client.
“In addition, we want to put leverage back in the client’s hands. We think our any sourcing approach will lower rates because we’re opening more supply, and thereby changing the supply and demand dynamics.”
Currently, he said, clients have little leverage over the cost of media no matter how much they spend. “The market sets itself and advertisers have to live with that. But we don’t accept that,” he continued. “We want to change the way things are to benefit clients.”
Asghar said Bayer and the Crossmedia team will give clients and prospective clients “new ways to access media inventory based on their data, independent from the current constraints imposed on them by the tech and holding company walled gardens.”
Bayer said he’s joined XM because it’s an entrepreneurial company that “wants to do media the right way and has a deep passion about doing excellent work for its clients.
“Every decision we make is in the best interests of our clients and being a part of that culture is very inspiring to me,” he said.
About Crossmedia
Crossmedia is an independent full-service media agency with eight offices in the US, Germany and London with annual billings of more than $1 billion and more than 550 Crossmedians worldwide. Founded in 1997 in Germany and 2000 in the US, it is recognized as a pioneer in data-led and unbiased media solutions. With its self-imposed and third-party audited Transparency Report introduced in 2007, Crossmedia is the only media agency that operates in a truly transparent way on a global level. Crossmedia clients include BMW/Mini, Etihad Airways, Lidl, US Bank, Hertz, The Hartford Insurance Company, Nordstrom Rack, Lululemon, US Bank and White Castle.
