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Omnicom wraps up its Cannes Lions presence with a YouTube livestream partnership
By Michael Bürgi • June 19, 2025 •
Digiday covers the latest from marketing and media at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. More from the series →
Mere months away from closing the ultimate partnership in an acquisition of Interpublic Group (so long as the deal isn’t derailed), holding company Omnicom instead this week at Cannes Lions rolled out a series of partnerships designed to harness the power of live.
The final of seven, Omnicom today unveiled a partnership with Google’s YouTube that lets Omnicom clients target high-traffic livestreaming content (including sports, entertainment, gaming and shopping) on the video platform, in a more specific way than it’s been able to before now, Digiday has learned. The emphasis is on live, and lets said clients activate their messaging across influencers that fit their marketing strategy — before now, live inventory on YouTube was packaged as part of a broader media buy, preventing teams from creating strategies catered to live. A beta test starts in July in the U.S. then expands to other regions.
Once again, the process starts with OMG tapping its Omni orchestration platform to identify the audiences clients are looking to reach, which then get pushed to Google and used to build lists of top performing YouTube Live channels and livestream influencers. Once identified, clients are able to react in real-time with messaging that dovetails with the live-streamer’s content.
The effectiveness and results of those efforts then get fed back into Omni, where its Influencer Discovery Agent resides — beefing up the AI-powered agent’s knowledge base of influencers that it’s already getting from some of Omnicom’s prior live partnerships announced earlier this week (including with Meta, with Walmart and with X).
“Building upon our Omni audiences to YouTube connection, we have now integrated live signals into our influencer discovery agent to identify influencers that best resonate with our brands’ audiences,” noted Clarissa Season, chief experience officer with Annalect, which operates and manages Omni.
OMG’s chief product officer for North America, Megan Pagliuca, is the principal architect of Omnicom’s “live” strategy rolling out at Cannes Lions. “Helping brands create dedicated live strategies on YouTube translates to competitive advantage that balances brand and influencer messaging across live content,” she said. “Any marketer not asking its media agency for a live investment strategy is already behind.”
And Kevin Blazaitis, who’s U.S. president of Omnicom’s influencer arm Creo, noted that the insights “enhance planning to where we can see which influencer is better at live, and who’s more scripted. These are great signals for us to use.”
That deeper insight beforehand can help advertisers fine-tune what content they want to be associated with. “In the fast-paced world of live streaming, relevancy is key,” said Sandra Kirkpatrick, senior marketing director at Barcel USA, the snack division of Grupo Bimbo, which is an Omnicom client. “This capability ensures our brand messaging is timely and impactful, delivering the real-time relevance our customers expect while reaching our audience when they’re most engaged.”
“Our creators aren’t just broadcasting; they’re conversing, reacting, and building communities in the moment,” said Romana Pawar, senior director of product management for YouTube Ads. “For advertisers, this means an unparalleled opportunity to place your brand not just next to content, but within highly interactive experiences on the platform. We are excited to see Omnicom lean into livestreams.”
“As a practitioner, now I have better control and customized ways of building campaigns,” added Ryan Eusanio, svp of video and programmatic center of excellence for OMG North America.
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