Why marketers are rethinking identity infrastructure

Marketers began asking questions after Publicis Groupe’s acquisition of LiveRamp, focusing on whether LiveRamp will remain neutral. Neutrality concerns are framed as an agency issue tied to competitive dynamics and reliance on infrastructure for routing first-party data. The worry is not that data will be raided, but that a rival will own the infrastructure agencies depend on. Industry consultant Ron Amram said the acquisition crystallizes a long-running debate about whether a truly neutral middle in advertising technology still exists. He also said the deal accelerates Publicis’s efforts to position itself as a data and infrastructure partner rather than only an agency holding company.

"The first and most obvious question is whether LiveRamp will stay neutral. It's a reasonable thing to wonder. It's also, according to several ad execs, largely an agency concern dressed up as a marketer one. Neutrality was always fragile For them, the service is the service. Who owns the infrastructure matters less than whether it keeps working. The neutrality anxiety sits higher up the chain, with the agencies that compete against Publicis for business and have spent years routing their clients' first-party data through a platform that now sits inside a rival's house."

"There, the fear isn't that Publicis will raid the data. It's that a competitor now owns the infrastructure they've spent years depending on. Ron Amram, an industry consultant who previously held leadership roles in in-house media teams at companies including Heineken and Mars, said the acquisition effectively crystallizes a debate the industry has been circling around for years: whether a truly "neutral middle" in advertising technology still exists at all."

"Amram argued the acquisition accelerates Publicis' efforts to position itself not simply as an agency holding company, but as a data and infrastructure partner to clients - something rivals have long discussed but struggled to fully execute. "I think the LiveRamp acquisition moves them [Publicis] in a direction that the holding companies have been talking about for a very long time, and struggled with, which is being data managers and data companies for their clients," he said."

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