A few months after members of President Obama’s 2012 advertising and data teams came together to start a new firm called AMG that would bring some of his campaign’s technical savvy to corporate America, a rival faction of advertising and data strategists say they are starting a competing effort.
On Thursday the ad firm of Jim Margolis, GMMB, and the big data firm of Dan Wagner, Civis Analytics, announced the formation of a partnership that will replicate the Obama campaign’s high-tech system for placing ads on television at the right time and on the right programs for political and business clients.
The campaign’s system - called “The Optimizer “ â€" essentially figured out the minute-to-minute viewing habits of specific individual voters by tracking the activity of their cable or satellite television set-top boxes.
Mr. Margolis was Mr. Obama’s senior advertising strategist, and his firm was in charge of placing all of the campaign’s commercial time buys. Mr. Wagner was the data mastermind who oversaw the campaign’s secret analytics department, which set out to specifically identify every individual voter the campaign needed to sway in critical swing states.
The new firm says it will work not only for political clients but also for businesses and nonprofit organizations.
As such, it will be in direct competition with AMG. That firm was started by another senior Obama advertising strategist, Larry Grisolano, of the firm AKPD, formerly run by Mr. Obama’s former adviser David Axelrod; the Obama communications strategist Erik Smith; and several younger techies led by the former Democratic Party strategist Chauncey McLean.
Despite the new rivalry, Mr. Margolis said: “We work closely with AKPD on a variety of projects every day. Sometimes we also compete.â€
Both new advertising firms are operating without the benefit of the vast - and valuable â€" trove of voter data the Obama campaign has collected over the years. Most of that is not being transferred to the Democratic Party, Politico reported Wednesday.
The formation of the new firm further highlights the decision by many of the most technologically sophisticated members of Mr. Obama’s data team to head into business for themselves rather than to enlist with the administration for a second term. Those decisions have stood out in recent weeks as attention has focused on the failed start of the health care website.
