Imogen Hewitt On "Recalibration" Of Media And Creative Relationship
Imogen Hewitt has spent 25 years in full service, media, and creative agencies both in Australia and South East Asia. A career strategist, she has parlayed her skills in insight, instinct and understanding people into agency leadership roles. In 2024, she was appointed chief media officer for Publicis Groupe ANZ while retaining her role as CEO of Spark Foundry ANZ.
As Publicis Groupe ANZ chief media officer, Imogen is responsible for driving growth and connectivity across the Groupe’s media businesses in ANZ and is a member of the Publicis Media global team. Partnering with the ANZ media CEOs, Imogen’s focus is on ensuring best-in-class media, strategy, data, analytics, and investment outcomes to accelerate media transformation for Publicis clients.
LBB> What does “connectivity” across Publicis Groupe’s media businesses look like in practice?
Imogen> Operationally, it looks like regular connections between the media agency CEOs and leaders across our brands. It looks like the standardisation of internal templates, where everyone benefits from simple, systematic and aligned ways of doing things. It looks like the automation of repeatable tasks that are relevant to all agencies, and it looks like technology that enhances workflows and improves legacy systems that are long overdue for a tune-up.
It’s our view that all of these elements are table stakes, and that having world-class media, creative, digital and CX agencies collaborating on how to evolve them at pace poses a competitive advantage for the Groupe in market, without diluting the potency of our agencies.
Culturally, it looks like agencies that balance competing ferociously while knowing they rise faster and higher together. Our people support one another, embrace collaboration and freely and actively help one another to win, retain and grow.
Practically, that manifests as shared intelligence, shared infrastructure, de-duplication and collaboration. Critically, this is achieved while maintaining highly distinct positioning, product offerings, people and expert capabilities in each agency, and without ever compromising client IP.
It’s a beautiful dance and we’ve been choreographing it longer than anyone else.
LBB> What are clients asking for most right now when it comes to media, and how are those asks evolving?
Imogen> Different clients ask for different things. To treat clients like they are homogeneous would be a very poor reflection of how invested we are in their unique businesses. However, if I attempt to cluster it, it goes something like this.
Those experiencing sustained pressure and who have KPIs linked to quarterly sales cycles are naturally asking for AI-driven efficiency, cost savings, rate savings and agility that mirrors their requirements.
On the other hand, those clients in organisations that see marketing as a seat for growth, and understand that brand creates a sustainable future audience while performance capitalises on immediate sales opportunity, are asking for more strategy. They’re looking for keener insight, innovative ways to connect with and retain their customers, and evidence that can prove it works.
It’s an interesting time. The ask has evolved quickly to, “How is technology deployed at every process point in your agencies, so that your people understand us and our customers better than anyone else; we generate ideas and channel plans that stand out and stand alone; and we ensure maximum efficiency as it becomes increasingly democratised, allowing us to focus on the effectiveness that will see us really win?”
Indeed, the importance of strategy -- of better, bigger thinking, and of valuable ideas against a volume of standardised technology -- is the greatest course correction I have seen in years.
LBB> The media ecosystem is fragmenting at speed. How do you help clients navigate an environment where audiences are more scattered than ever?
Imogen> The media ecosystem has been fragmenting at speed for as long as I can remember, but as some things change so too do some things remain.
Know your audience. Connect credibly with their choices of content and context. Think holistically, not sequentially, in a world where we can no longer predict the order in which people see a campaign or a series of assets.
Add value in your exchanges with your customers -- entertain them, give them utility, educate them, but know that reach alone is a blunt instrument. Move with them as their consumption evolves, but do it in a way that is distinctive and believable to your brand.
Measure what works so you know what to do more of, but not to the exclusion of what might be coming next. And finally, select an agency with a strong ID solution, such as ConnectedID, so you are people planning, not channel planning.
LBB> Decoupling, recoupling, creative agencies trying to build media functions, media agencies creating content studios… what’s your take on the relationship between creative and media, and where do you think it’s going?
Imogen> The relationship between creative and media across the industry has always been dynamic -- sometimes symbiotic, sometimes siloed, and increasingly experimental. What we’re seeing now is less about decoupling or recoupling in the traditional sense, and more about a recalibration of value and capability across both disciplines.
Creative agencies building media functions and media agencies launching content studios are signals of a shared ambition: to own more of the idea-to-impact journey. But the real opportunity lies not in duplication, but in integration. When creative and media thinking are developed in tandem, the result is not just cohesive storytelling -- it’s strategic precision. Media insights sharpen creative relevance. Creative ambition elevates media execution.
At Publicis Groupe ANZ, we’ve leaned into this convergence by fostering environments where media and creative teams collaborate deeply but retain their distinct strengths. We believe in ‘creativity in channel’, where media isn’t just a distribution mechanism but a canvas for brand expression. It’s about understanding the cultural context, the audience mindset and the platform dynamics, and then crafting ideas that are native to those spaces.
The future isn’t about one discipline absorbing the other. It’s about building connected models that respect expertise while enabling fluid collaboration.
As technology continues to democratise access and automate execution, the differentiator will be how well creative, media, CX, technology and production teams can co-create ideas, experiences and frameworks that are both imaginative and effective. That’s where the magic happens.
LBB> The wider industry has become really obsessed with artificial intelligence, but media has been using variations of AI and algorithmic automation for some time -- what’s your take on the longer-term influence of AI on media? Are there any aspects of media planning that you think AI could still have a big impact on?
Imogen> Media has been quietly embedding AI into its DNA for years. From programmatic buying to predictive modelling, we’ve long relied on algorithmic automation to drive efficiency and performance. But what’s changing now is the scale, speed and sophistication of what AI can do, and how deeply it can integrate across the entire agency ecosystem.
Looking ahead, AI won’t just optimise media. It will reshape how we plan, create, measure and connect. It’s not a bolt-on or a replacement; it’s additive to the speed with which we can do things and an enabler for our people to do more interesting work, more often.
Right now, we are seeing AI capabilities becoming interwoven into the way we do all sorts of things across the Groupe’s media agencies:
• Strategic and Scenario Planning: Enabling real-time scenario modelling to help our planners simulate outcomes based on market shifts, consumer sentiment or competitive moves – all before a dollar is even spent.
• Agentic Identity: In response to consumers increasingly adopting AI assistants, we’re considering how to plan for both the human and their agent. That means understanding prompt patterns, agent preferences and decision pathways.
• Creative Intelligence: Through PXP, our global content and production network, AI is powering intelligent content supply chains, enabling real-time, personalised creative that adapts to context, audience and platform.
• Portfolio Optimisation: AI is being layered over our existing tools and data frameworks to reduce time spent determining the ideal investment mix across brands, markets and channels – maximising both short-term sales and long-term brand equity.
• Cultural Intelligence: Publicis Groupe tools like Fluency are decoding cultural shifts in real time, giving planners a daily feed of what matters to audiences.
At Publicis Groupe, we’re framing this technological evolution through the lens of ‘6 AI Upsides’:
1. Intelligent Production – AI accelerates content creation from briefing to delivery.
2. ConnectedID + CoreAI – Enables real-time optimisation of messaging and media, while allowing us to plan for people, not plan for channels.
3. Next Best Action Engines – Surfacing the most impactful marketing action at any moment.
4. Signal-Based Measurement – Tracks meaningful signals, not just metrics.
5. Agentic Identity – Plans for both the human and their AI assistant.
6. Cultural Intelligence – Decodes cultural shifts to inform media and creative.
In short, AI is the next step in our journey moving towards work that’s predictive, adaptive and deeply human. It’s about embracing Human + AI and harmonising the depth of knowledge, experience and real-life common sense our people bring to their work for our clients with the speed that automation brings. It’s about doing things smarter and with more relevance and resonance than ever before.
LBB> You’ve had a 25+ year career in strategy and media – what’s the biggest leadership lesson you’ve learned along the way?
Imogen> One! That’ s impossible! So, here’s seven:
• It’s more important that your decisions are respected than you are liked.
• If you leave people in an information vacuum, what they make up will always be worse than telling them the truth.
• If you’re wrong, own it and change it.
• Bad news should travel faster than good news. See the ‘information vacuum’ point above.
• Your way (and this is important) is not the only way and may not be the best way.
• People want autonomy. Give it to them, but always be there to catch them.
• And finally, hold your people up. Don’t lean on them to hold you up. The days of command and control from on high are dead!
