This year at CES, commerce was a big focus for Omnicom. We heard from our senior leaders at Flywheel and OMG, client L’Oreal and partners such as Amazon, Roku and Disney. There were key themes touching all parts of commerce from clean rooms, path to purchase, org structure, video commerce and role of AI in commerce.

Setting up the right org structure to maximise sales

Breaking the organisational silos and having fluidity in budgets and communication across relevant teams can unlock new opportunities. We heard Flywheel’s Claudia Johnson discuss a meeting where our client Kimberly Clark had teams from D2C, Amazon and Walmart all in the same meeting with their Amazon retail team to enable sharing of learnings across teams that historically might have competed internally for share of sales.

In Australia we’re still seeing this as a key topic of discussion with clients on the best structure to break silos between sales, marketing and ecommerce teams for better alignment on maximising sales. 

The key role clean rooms play in digital commerce

One of the major announcements from Amazon and Omnicom at CES was expansion of the data lookback window in Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) from 12.5 months to five years. Brands are now able to expand their view of Amazon retail signals to a significantly longer period enabling them to get unparalleled view of long-term value and NTB customers. For brands with longer purchase times the expanded lookback window enables a much more realistic view of repeat purchases. Patrik Miller of Flywheel gave an example of how using this we saw 4x LTV for an apparel brand. Building on this we can see how portfolio brands can benefit from this by analysing cross category or cross brand shopping behaviours of Amazon customers.

Although this feature is currently only available in the US we’re working with the local Amazon team to bring this to our Australian clients later in 2025. 

Another key takeaway was how clean rooms are being used to enrich the 1PD with retailer signals to enable more personalised experiences for consumers and drive increased sales at the same time. Locally in Australia our Flybuys partnership is a great example of how we’ve enabled our CPG clients to do this. Another use case is how we can use Omni Audiences in AMC to reach the same consumers on Amazon.

Full funnel commerce with Amazon

Over the last year Amazon has increased its capabilities to reach customers across the full user journey. Amazon Prime Video ads now include both live sports and on-demand premium video in more than 10 markets. Prime video ads as part of the wider Amazon ad ecosystem is fully integrated and marketers can now see the impact of their upper funnel advertising on bottom funnel sales.

Amazon is also working on shoppable video ad units that both enable second screen shopping experiences as well as direct purchase using the remote, collapsing the customer journey even further.

The above coupled with new announcement around audience targeting in sponsored search ads as well as the aforementioned five year lookback window now truly enables full funnel marketing on Amazon.

Video commerce and shoppable video

Video commerce globally is growing at 30%. China is the clear leader in this area where, as a channel, it’s the most mature and culturally embraced. 40% of influencer-based purchases have been a spontaneous decision. Amazon in the US offers live shopping experiences and now has ad supported shopping channels, these were some of the sound bytes from multiple sessions ran by Omnicom and our partners.

Disney and Roku both gave great examples, with the Disney and Home Depot partnership around the holiday season showcasing seasonal items that could be bought based on availability in nearest store. Roku have experimented with shoppable showrooms for auto brands that allow a more immersive experience and seamless lead gen as all Roku customers are logged in.

How AI is impacting commerce

AI continues to be hot topic in to 2025. Amazon has implemented a suite of AI tools to enhance the shopping experience on platform. Rufus is Amazon’s Gen AI shopping assistant delivering personalised shopping experiences in the US. It can also be an avenue for marketers to deliver brand messaging within the experience. We expect Rufus to launch in Australia this year after finalising tests in the US. Amazon also uses AI to create review summaries, pptimise PDPs and generate lifestyle product shops. If used brands should always have final review to ensure generated content aligns with brand guidelines.

Burger King Leveraged AI for co-creation with their customers to design their ideal Million Dollar Whopper which was then featured and voted on by others. They’ve also integrated Walmart+ customers into Burger King’s CRM to tailor their comms and offers to customers based on their behavioural signals.

Commerce and retail media are rapidly evolving, and the Australian market stands at a crucial intersection. While some global innovations like Amazon’s AMC 5-year lookback window and Rufus AI are still pending local launch, there are learnings for marketers that can be implemented locally.

Begin by evaluating your team structure for better collaboration across retail, digital, and marketplace channels. Use this transition period to maximise existing partnerships with local players like Flybuys, focusing on clean room capabilities to enhance your first-party data strategy. The rise of video commerce presents an immediate opportunity - start developing shoppable content strategies and identify potential streaming platform partnerships that align with your audience preferences. On the Amazon front, optimise your current presence while preparing for upcoming features: audit your product detail pages, test video content formats, and develop an AI readiness plan for when Rufus launches locally. Most importantly, break down the traditional silos between your sales, marketing, and ecommerce teams - this alone can be a significant performance multiplier. Success in 2025 will come to brands that can balance immediate optimisation of existing channels while building capabilities for emerging commerce innovation.

Please reach out to your team leads to hear more or to see more demonstration of our capabilities in action.

Mo has 17 years of digital marketing experience. With a Master’s degree in IT for ecommerce, over the last 10 years he has worked with OMG to develop its e-commerce practice. He managed the Transact business in Australia for a couple of years and since acquisition of Flywheel last year, his focus has been on the launch of Flywheel business locally. He’s an ecommerce expert with extensive experience in Retail Ops and Retail Media helping OMG clients grow sales and market share in competitive categories.

Search is more than just a channel

Search was a core focus at CES. Panel experts brought to the forefront the OMG Q4 insights piece, “The Future of Search”, which showcased the prominent shift happening in the search landscape; no longer is search just a channel, it has become a behaviour.

The rise of generative AI functionality combined with the expansion of search capabilities within non-typical search channels (think social-search) has propelled this shift; with users adapting the ways they search. We are seeing a move from text-based prompts – a skill finely tuned since Google became synonymous with the channel – to users now simply asking for what they want and relying on the machine to do the rest.

Platform evolution

Generative AI, built from Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Open AI’s Chat GPT (seeing ~1 billion messages a day), and existing search giants like Google are scaling out their own generative AI in tandem. So not only do we have an enhanced version of traditional search, we now have new competitors in the mix too. With this comes greater fragmentation - and more monetisation opportunities - with platforms like Perplexity already building out their own ad products.

The wider availability of Gen AI has impacted the way users search - with more than half of consumers using full length questions when using Gen AI functions, and 40% using full length questions on traditional search engines.

Platforms are evolving at pace to keep up, combining more automation and AI into the way we initiate search (Google Lens, Voice search, image, text), the way we experience search (AI Overviews, CoPilot) and the way we use search to reach consumers across search (Performance Max, Demand Gen).

Social search

Recent years have seen a rise of short form, or “snackable” content on social media platforms that also offers a way for users to search and discover. OMG’s research showed nearly 80% of Gen Z and 2/3 of millennials are using social as a search function.

TikTok has been one of the platforms to emerge strongly from this trend, with ~3 billion searches happening each day on the app, and 25% of those happening in the first 30 seconds of app open. This behavioural progression is guiding social format evolution too, seen recently with TikTok launching a "search ads campaign“ type (US only for now).

The social search revolution discussed at CES highlighted how many - particularly under 35’s - are experiencing search through both passive (exposed content) and active (intentional search) behaviours.

Multi-modality

Multi modal experiences are present on a platform and consumer basis – the platform providing the mechanism and the consumer showcasing the intent with the different ways they search; actively (through the search bar, or image search) or passively (through a social tag, or “similar” product recommendation).

Movement between platforms (eg. a user is exposed to a product on Facebook and transfers to Google for validation) highlights how search continues to be a great indicator of intent. With 15% of queries being brand new every day, the LLMs continue to learn and adapt exponentially from this mass of data and posing a strong opportunity to scale learnings into the way we plan and buy search.

Announced at CES were two core product offerings coming to Omni in 2025; Share of Voice Planning and Next Generation Search Agent, which will combine the power of AI to provide deeper insights for advertisers that form tangible action and value.

OMG is keeping pace with the change in search with the ongoing evolution of the Omni platform demonstrated through two new product developments:

Share of voice planning

• What is it? AI powered insights for search visibility optimisation.
• How does it work? Housed within the Omni ecosystem, the tool uses search query volume from Google Ads, and powered by Google’s Gemini system, provides insight into search visibility by product, according to brand name. These insights will enable advertisers to see how their brand share of voice compares with that of their category competitors.
• What are the benefits? The tool will empower investment decisioning based on near real time competitive insights, enabling brands to maximise their own visibility across search based on where opportunities are and their own brand strategy.
• Global Launch: US launch Q4 2024
• AU launch: Estimated H2 2025
• Interim tools available: Google Ads Auction Insights, Custom reporting

Next Generation Search Agent

• What is it? AI powered agentic support that turns the insights into action.
• How does it work? The Next Generation Search Agent takes the insights generated from the Share of Voice Planning Tool, combined with data from Omni search lake and Omni Audiences, to provide recommendations for search campaign optimisation. The AI agent capabilities span keyword curation, audience recommendations and asset recommendations across both traditional search (text) and AI formats (Performance Max and Demand Gen).
• What are the benefits? Boost ROI by leveraging investment and creative recommendations informed by AI; enabling brands to act on true auction dynamics to gain a competitive edge within their category.
• Global Launch: Q1 2025
• AU launch: Estimated Q4 2025
• Interim tools available: Omni Audience Explorer, Google Ads Recommendations, Google Performance Planner

Please reach out to your team leads to hear more or to see more demonstration of our capabilities in action.

Georgie has 16+ years’ experience in paid media, spanning experience in both the UK and Australian markets.  Over this time, working in both agency and client-side roles and gaining a wealth of experience of the paid media landscape, gaining knowledge across all major buying platforms and technology, and holding first-hand experience across a multitude of verticals, market challenges, and objectives. 

In her current role as General Manager – Product & Partnerships, Georgie leads the Search and Social pillars and is responsible for guiding implementational best practice through development and evangelism of standardised products and processes throughout Omnicom Media Group.

In Australia, helping brands connect with their fans through culture and sports has never been more challenging. We are facing several complex factors:

• Audience engagement: Passion points are no longer linear; audiences’ fandom and passion points are growing and converging at a rapid pace.
• Fragmentation of interests: We are navigating the increasing fragmentation of these passions and their ecosystems.
• Budget constraints: Managing budgets against rising broadcast rights fees is a significant challenge.
• Audience behaviour: We are building strategies to connect with audiences who exhibit increasingly dynamic consumption behaviours and higher expectations for authentic and relevant messaging.
• Global expansion: The world is shrinking, and we need to consider opportunities beyond our borders as fast-growing global codes are making a significant impact.

For brands to thrive in this competitive landscape, we must ensure they have a comprehensive strategy, not just a sponsorship.

There was a strong focus at CES on cultural strategy. We hear about how developing a richer understanding of culture, sport, and gaming is providing insight into how rights holders, broadcasters, and brands are preparing to harness technology. These efforts aim to further advance opportunities to connect authentically with customers, reshaping experiences to cut through and win the hearts and minds of consumers.

Below are some key themes that we’ve identified as likely to drive change and have a global and local impact, potentially guiding and building solutions to help us navigate the challenges mentioned above.

Data and AI providing deeper understanding of fan behaviours and increasing opportunities for personalised connections.

• Access to ever increasingly rich data is driving advancements in how we can effectively build audience pools, tap into cultural/sport zeitgeists and dive deep into cultural and sporting identities.
  • Omnicom has harnessed this data through the ‘Q Omni Intelligence’ tool. A tool that scans source material to identify trends in culture and sport.
    By using this tool, the team can identify the top mega trends and the underlying macro trends that exist beneath them that are shaping consumer behaviour and market response.
• Streaming growth and introduction of new media channels e.g. Amazon, Netflix is providing access to increasingly rich data improving cohort building capabilities
  • This provides a promise of more relevant advertising to relevant audiences.
  • Targeted comm’s strategies with audience-based creative is proven to drive 30% more brand intent and 40% more purchase intent.
  • AI making personalised ad experiences a fast-improving reality.

 Streaming growth is unlocking broader growth and innovation for brands

• The NBA’s shift from two broadcasters to three with an increasing focus on exclusive streaming content provides an example on how these new broadcast deals will continue to drive growth and innovation
• By spreading broadcast across more providers the NBA broadens its opportunity for marketing support of the game driving visibility and growth
• Increased focus on digital platforms will enhance fan access and engagement, drive personalisation and provide opportunity to innovate with interactive viewing opportunities and more bespoke content
• This in turn will unlock more opportunities for brands to integrate and lean into the creator economy and broader ecosystem

Socialisation of sports

Short form content consumption has been on the rise driven by new platforms, athlete driven storytelling and the rise of microcultures and meme culture.

Younger fans now are social first. 60% of TikTok users prefer to consume sports on socials vs. TV.

The ongoing growth of women’s sport, is also being driven by similar trends. Whilst reach is growing, engagement is where women’s sport shines through, including the application of authentic storytelling and personality driven content away from the live game. In football in the US the women’s league sees 50% higher engagement when compared with the men’s game and 11% higher than Tik Tok’s sport content benchmark.

We are witnessing the shift from social native to creator native.

With these trends alongside the growth in micro cultures, meme culture and the phone as part of our live experience at event, is it possible that we will see the mobile phone become the new ‘first screen’?

As these trends continue, it will be increasingly important to consider the full ecosystem and how we can harness storytelling through it. Being able to build communication strategies that surround the fan will help drive attention and long-term brand success.

Gaming continues to hold our attention

With an ever-increasing narrative around scale, agencies and brands have started to acknowledge the reach power of gaming. In 2025 the conversation has shifted from selling scale to selling the how. Moving from a siloed approach to an integrated part of broader long-term strategy and planning.

Gaming’s superpower is immersion! In 2025 rightsholders, broadcasters and brands are starting to realise the impact of this immersion as they will likely apply principles of gaming and gamification across their own plans and channels.

While not specifically gaming, VR is also a hot topic with ongoing application and innovation in sport viewing.

While rightsholders and broadcasters are excited about the technology and how it can improve the linear viewing experience for fans through new camera angles competition to innovate and improve viewer experiences is real. It has to be different to what we can already experience.

We also need to consider that sport is often a meeting place and shared experience with innovation happening in the USA with immersive group viewing experiences that make it feel like you are at the game.

Please reach out to your team leads to hear more or to see more demonstration of our capabilities in action.

With over two decades of experience in media and marketing, Aaron has honed a diverse skill set, particularly in sports partnerships and integrated campaigns. His expertise spans both client and agency roles, with a specialisation in the fast-paced retail, tech, and QSR categories.

Aaron has been with Omnicom for over a decade, leading partnerships for prominent OMD clients across sports and entertainment. From strategic planning to implementation and evaluation, he has consistently delivered impactful results. In 2018, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Sports Partnership division within OMD, with the mission of helping brands connect with fans through sports by creating meaningful partnerships that transcend traditional commercial placements and resonate deeply with audiences.

In 2022, Aaron was promoted to his current role, expanding the sport partnership business across the entire OMG agency roster.

Aaron and his team have collaborated with broadcasters and rights holders to create impactful and award-winning partnerships for Omnicom brand partners.

CES is renowned for offering a glimpse into the future of consumer electronics, particularly in home entertainment. While foldable, transparent, and even floating TV screens have captured attention this year, the real revolutions are happening behind the screens. Manufacturers and streaming platforms are redefining the home entertainment experience, revolutionising both how we watch and how marketers use technology to connect with audiences.

Omnicom and LG Ad Solutions sat down to discuss these trends in the future of Connected TV.

CTV viewership surging: CTV now accounts for around 20% of household media consumption in the US, and Australia is similar.

The rise of FAST (Free ad-supported TV): TV manufacturers are growing their own entertainment, offering built-in CTVs, a free alternative to expensive subscriptions and fresh advertising opportunities for brands.

Glass level measurement at scale: A new age of measurement is emerging, using TV manufacturers' glass level image and audio recognition systems, transforming millions of screens into a panel of participants for measurement.

Precision geo-targeting opens TV advertising to small brands: Historically, small brands or local businesses find TV costs prohibitive, however now with device level CTV targeting at scale, LG Ad Solutions is seeing a growing sector of small businesses adopt CTV advertising due to its ability to focus on their town or region to reduce cost.

What does this mean for the Australian media industry and its advertisers?

The adoption of CTV is already making its mark in Australia, and this is largely due to TV manufacturers commercialising their data for a range of purposes.

CTV becomes the battlefield for streaming platforms: Surprisingly, the biggest investors in CTV manufacturers' advertising aren’t the likes of an FMCG brand but the streaming platforms themselves. By commercialising their home screens, CTV manufacturers enable streaming platforms to promote new shows through paid ads, influencing what viewers watch next.

Beyond ads, streaming platforms are leveraging advanced analytics to gain deeper insights into their viewing audiences. They can now identify which programs captivate viewers and even target those at risk of lapsing.

Advertisers targeted shoppable ad opportunities keep growing:   While buying directly from a TV may seem unconventional, the technology behind it is rapidly evolving. Glass-level data now enables advertisers to target viewers based on their recent content consumption, all while ensuring strong privacy protections. Manufacturers’ TV home screens have become valuable real estate for addressable ads, providing brands with the chance to present targeted and longer-form storytelling content in a natural and organic manner.

Recent Omnicom’s Multi-screen Optimiser: In today’s complex AV landscape, planning across multiple media platforms can be challenging. To address this, Omnicom has released the Multi-screen Optimiser to our clients. This tool enables you to plan your AV advertising at a media owner level using first-party user-level data, allowing you to maximise your advertising investment across the right set of media partners for your campaign.

The future of connected TV is rich with exciting opportunities, please reach out to your team leads for more information.

Ben has worked at OMG in both UK and Australia for the last decade, helping us to create bespoke products and tools that allow brands to leverage data to deliver more effective planning.

Ben has led the technical development of OMG's Multi-Screen Optimiser, working with every major AV and streaming platform in Australia, providing a wealth of unique knowledge on the modern AV market.

He helps clients navigate analytics about their category, their brand and the media landscape, empowering them to make informed, strategic decisions and achieve an evidence-based competitive advantage.

It has been said that as a future facing conference the best way to view CES is as a compass rather than a map. So, with that said and with compass in hand, lets assess the lay of the land. Two key concepts were landed in the Omni 3 presentation – the concept of “AI Agents” and then the move towards “Agentic Intelligence” and the idea of output-based prompting powering the way we build campaigns in the future through Omni 3. Demonstrating again the pace of change in our industry particularly where the application of Gen AI is concerned. 

The move to an outcome-based prompting approach signifies a major milestone in the way AI enables us to work to solve client challenges and build campaigns and its a concept that offers a glimpse into our future. For that future to be one that’s both exciting and effective, its critical for us here at OMG Australia that we prepare the runway for the arrival of Omni 3 by embedding the understanding of AI within our teams and building the capabilities within Omni’s current incarnation. And this is the journey we have been on.

In Omni we have a market leading Marketing Activation Platform, it is deeply embedded into our agencies. Currently on the Omni platform here in Australia alone we have over 3,500 active users. Omni already houses AI Agents and language models that help us get to better answers for your business. Within Omni right now we house The Omni Assist Agent Store. The Omni Assist Agent Store houses a suite of agents, or specific applications of Generative AI. There are four new Omni Assist Agents in the Omni Assist Agent Store: Omni Assist Summarisation Assistant Agent, Omni Assist Headline Generator Agent, Omni Assist Image Generator Agent, and Omni Assist Prompt Writing Assistant Agent.  

Additionally, we have agents attached to specific applications that enable more effective understanding of vast and historically cumbersome data sets, for example Culture Q is OMG’s Cultural Intelligence Platform. It uses AI designed to track societal patterns and trends to predict their potential impact and identify future opportunities. This provides a comprehensive cultural data set that helps all Omnicom agencies to understand and navigate cultural trends, enabling them to make informed decisions and design strategies that resonate with their target audiences. Another area where we are using AI agents extensively is audience understanding. Much like cultural trends its an area that requires the analysis of larger data. Within Omni Audience Explorer users can now rapidly understand audience attributes via our Audience Intelligence Agent doing away with the need to individually analyse thousands of lines of data.

Whilst we are focusing here on the tech implications, we must also recognise that AI cannot fully understand your challenges alone because it lacks the inherent ability to grasp nuanced human factors such as organisational culture, shifting priorities, emotional dynamics, and industry-specific subtleties that often go beyond data. The human expertise that you have here at OMG and indeed in you own team will continue to be a huge differentiating factor to bridge this gap by interpreting context, defining goals, and guiding AI to deliver the most impactful outcomes for your businesses and brands.

Please reach out to your team leads to hear more or to see more demonstration of our capabilities in action.

In Brian’s 20 plus years in the industry he’s been fortunate enough to work across a variety of agencies; from creative, to media, to design, as well as client side. Brian enjoyed immersing in a variety of categories and brands from established to start ups, from tech to FMCG, to entertainment, retail and more. This has given Brian a much broader and deeper understanding of the larger interconnected brand ecosystem and how best to accelerate growth within that ecosystem.

In Brian’s current role as Chief Product Officer, his primary focus is on extracting more value from the individual product specialisms across the agency. Key to this is identifying and implementing new team behaviours that break down the silos to unlock the power of the collective, and thinking about different data and tech to tap into, as well as, different ways to use our current tech, data, and tools we have access to across the network.