By Michael Bürgi  •  February 16, 2026  •

Ivy Liu

Savic, who becomes CEO of Attivo U.S. as well as CEO of Attivo Media U.S., said the plan is to supercharge the technological elements of the agencies in order to work more nimbly and effectively with fewer smarter people. He said he’s been given enough resources to acquire whatever is needed by Attivo’s global CEO Cam Murchison to offer existing and new clients the equivalent of a multi-plug power strip in a room that has only one outlet. 

“I don’t want to build technology, because what I learned is, by the time you build technology, someone already built 2.0 and 3.0,” said Savic, arguing that the dominant holdcos are offering their own one-size-fits-all tech, which to his thinking is a flawed solution. “Our platform can plug in different tools, systems, and AI-powered technologies so you can actually exchange different elements for different industries, different clients and for different targets. The biggest problem now with WPP and Omnicom and Publicis and others is, they say, ‘We have best of the best for everyone … And, well, there’s no technology that is good for everyone.” 

Savic and Prabhu, who have been consulting separately and together for the last few years, have already consulted with Hill Holliday’s and DNY’s clients (DNY is the renamed Deutsch), and plan to hit up the consultancies in coming weeks.

Savic and Prabhu worked together at Mediacom when the latter was the former’s chief strategy officer, which is why Savic told Attivo’s leadership when he accepted this current role that he “needed some trusted and and tested pirates to work with,” Prabhu being pirate No. 1.

“This is a chance for us to build something that really goes up against an ineffective system, an ineffective way of advertising and communicating brands and connecting brands with people,” said Prabhu, who becomes CEO of Hill Holliday and DNY. “People have moved ahead [in being more tech-savvy], technology has moved ahead, and yet we as an industry are still a little disintegrated. We are still a little occupied by our own sales processes. What we’re doing now goes back to what really matters.”

Prabhu’s expertise always resided in straddling media and creative to cultivate strategy that works equally well, rather than have them operate in silos that rarely overlap. To him and Savic, it’s a matter of realigning priorities and strategic direction. In other words, fixing misalignment.

“if you look at the industry overall, we are still creating ideas born from a TV-first world and integrating only at the point of distribution,” said Prabhu. “It’s an ineffective way of working and an ineffective way to develop campaigns and outcome solutions for brands today … even now, when we look at how most of the industry optimizes, it optimizes either only creative or only media. We’re living in a much different, faster paced world where technology and strategic integration right upfront needs to be the answer.”

Savic said that sentiment comes directly from the clients that he and Prabhu had been consulting with. “In talking with the most senior people on the marketing side and agency side, one word that kept coming up as a challenge again and again was misalignment,” said Savic. “Not just between media and creative, but misalignment between marketing teams, on performance teams, misalignment between various agencies and the platforms — everything that’s part of the modern marketing mix.”

Will they be able to right that imbalance at shops that have both seen better days? One client consultant, Bill Brace, who’s founder and CEO of Essor Conseil Partners (and a former client of Savic’s when he was president of Signet Jewelers), has faith it can happen. “What stands out to me is that [Savic’s] approach solves for an industry stuck in a conundrum — trying to reconcile ‘the old’ and ‘the new’ — rather than building a solution designed specifically for today’s realities,” said Brace. “The key point of differentiation is Sasha’s commitment to realigning the model by leaning fully into technology while bringing creative and media together around it.”

Although Prabhu believes the two agencies embody a spirit of integration, other observers remain to be convinced. Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester, when told of Attivo’s moves, said it falls into the broader pattern of media and creative consolidation happening across both holdco’s and independents, from WPP Creative to Dentsu and WPromote (which recently bought creative shop Giant Spoon) and others. 

“These are the movements that create opportunity for mid size [brands],” said Pattisall. “The truism of enterprise versus mid size and SMBs is that they’re much more nimble. If they can move in that fashion, I think they create opportunities for themselves that would not have otherwise existed.”

By mid March, Savic and Prabhu plan to launch a standalone media agency operation that will serve both creative shops, but they declined to offer details of that. 

While tech is a big focus for Savic and his pirates — as well as the belief that the modern agency will be more leanly staffed thanks to technology — it’s the quality of the people that will make the ultimate difference to clients. 

“My dream is not to build a company that will have thousands of people,” said Savic. “The dream is to build connective tissue technology, where you can insert specific platforms, specific tools, specific partnerships that are bespoke for a given client or for a given industry.” 

All that said, he quipped, “Clients will never want to have a beer with AI.” 

Color by numbers

We’re halfway through the Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina, Italy, which in the U.S. is being shown on NBCU properties. Ratings for the quadrennial event have been rock solid, hovering at a 25.7 million viewer average through Feb. 11, across NBCU’s networks carrying content, and double the average of the last winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022. Speaking of hovering, those improved numbers (courtesy of Nielsen) could have something to do with the really cool drone footage that’s been the biggest innovation in showcasing sports like downhill skiing and the luge, which reach speeds of almost 80 mph. 

Takeoff & landing

• Dentsu restructured its top management yet again, as it released its 2025 earnings. Takeshi Sano replaces Hiroshi Igarashi as president & global CEO of the Japanese holding company, effective at the end of March. Sano currently serves as CEO, Dentsu Japan & deputy global COO, Dentsu, overseeing 40% of the Group’s net revenue and more than half of its underlying operating profit. Under Sano’s watch, the global COO (Giulio Malegori, who’s also chair of Dentsu Americas) and president roles are being eliminated, enabling regional CEOs to report directly to Sano — who, unlike his predecessor, is bilingual. Speaking of which, for full-year 2025, net revenue was essentially flat, growing 0.3%, while organic growth also remained stalled at 0.5% and its operating margin dropped by half a point to 14.4%.
• PMG opened offices in Mexico City, which will serve as its hub for Latin American operations, as well as in Toronto, part of its plan to expand globally. The independent plans to hire multiple positions in both offices. 
• Horizon Media is integrating predictive intelligence platformZeroToOne.AI, into its HorizonOS and Blu AI platform to power real-world outcome predictions. ZTO’s large behavioral Model aims to brands predict actions with 85% accuracy.
• Lots of account moves last week: Omnicom’s PHD USA won Raymour & Flanigan’s media business, said to be about $121 million in media spend; the incumbent was Dentsu … However, Dentsu’s Carat extended its media work for client Arla Foods, a dairy firm, in the U.K., Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Dentsu also won media and creative AOR duties for probiotics and women’s health firmi-Health … Independent WPromote landed salad chain Sweetgreen’s paid media AOR assignment … Indie Strawberry Frog won media AOR duties for restaurant chain Cheesecake Factory, effective immediately. 
• Personnel moves: Stagwell’s Assembly hired its first CEO for India, tapping Alap Ghosh, who comes over from Google India, where he was the head of data and technology partnerships … Independent Mile Marker promoted Tony Russo from director of analytics to vp of AI innovation & strategy, while David Grey replaces him as senior director of analytics, coming over from a similar position at The Gate Worldwide … Indie Noble People hired Nitin Sinha to be head of media planning, coming over from Wasserman, and Anna Rosenblatt as head of strategy, who comes over from Essence Mediacom where she was managing partner, group strategy director … Kepler hired Emily Maxey as evp and client partner, a newly created role based in New York, coming from a marketing role at Fila, a Kepler client; The indie also hired Ashley Berkowitz as vp and head of strategic planning coming over from a planning role at OMD. 

Direct quote

“It is somewhat revealing that our primary interface [with Dentsu] was through the Dentsu International business, which has had excellent leaders, but it’s had a lot of them. I think we’re on our fifth [Americas] CEO in my eight years at Forrester [Wendy Clark, Nick Brien, Jacki Kelley, Michael Komasinski and currently Beth Ann Kaminkow].” 

— Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester, citing Dentsu’s continued reshuffling of management (see Takeoff & landing above)

Speed reading

• Sam Bradley compared the efforts of independent creative agencies to beat the holding companies’ consolidated creative efforts at their game. 
• In his Future of TV Briefing, Tim Peterson cites research that shows error rate for matches between IP and deterministic IDs like email addresses in CTV advertising can exceed 84%, a shockingly high number.
• I covered Salt XC’s acquisition of Craft & Commerce, a union of independents that brings a Canadian firm deeper into U.S. territory.