Serial entrepreneur Pete Robins, one of the UK media industry’s first-ever digital media strategists and buyers, is set to launch his fifth media agency.
Project5 is set to launch as an independent agency next year and will specialise in commerce, marketplace and retail media, The Media Leader can reveal.
As well as recognising Robins’ fifth venture, the brand name reflects his belief that the industry has entered a fifth age of commerce media, in which 80% of all spend is now delivered via some form of adtech shaped by data.
Speaking on an upcoming episode of The Media Leader Podcast, Robins said there are more opportunities than ever to deliver more effective media for advertisers that are measured in better ways and which show that media planning contributes to a brand’s sales.
Robins told The Media Leader: “After 30 years of trying to get my head around media planning, there’s never been a more important time for the need for advanced media planning, so I’d be a bit daft not to try something in this space.
“It’s taken me a bit longer to get Project5 off the ground than I had envisaged, but the unintended consequence of this has given me more time to refine what we’ll do and not do, and how this will give our clients competitive advantage.”
Robins is one of the industry’s first digital media planner/buyers, having handled this discipline since 1996, before the launch of Google.
He has since founded four agencies: Media21 (which sold to MediaCom, then part of Grey), Glue (sold to Dentsu), Agenda21 (sold to BeHeard Group) and sister shop DataShaka. Following the sale of Media21 to Grey, he then co-ran MediaCom’s digital division for four years, sitting on its board of directors.
For 10 years, Robins was chair of the IPA’s Digital Media Group until 2021. He also advises and has invested in a range of other digital, tech and creative businesses.
Robins joins editor-in-chief Omar Oakes on The Media Leader Podcast on Monday for an “epic conversation” about the future of media planning and the future of media agencies, including insider insight on how to build and sell an agency.
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