For CMI Media Group and Compas, 2022 was the year of “omnidynamics.” Wait — what?

Let Compas CEO James Woodland explain: “We think there’s an opportunity to combine what is traditionally referred to as omnichannel with dynamic creative optimization.” Omnidynamics, then, represents the Platonic combination of those two capabilities.

“It’s about serving the right message to the right person at the right time, and being where they are and delivering what is important to them,” adds CMI Media Group president and CEO Susan Dorfman.

To accomplish this, brands and their agency media partners must excel at what Dorfman characterizes as “orchestration.” That means understanding the client’s patient touchpoints “from support services and what’s happening on the paid/owned side to the PR perspective and what’s happening on the social front,” she notes. On the HCP side, it means understanding what’s happening in sales.

It represents a heavy lift in many instances, but this knowledge base allows CMI/Compas to anticipate client needs during every engagement. The next step, Dorfman explains, is using paid media to deliver a “meaningful and responsive reaction” to every action that a customer takes. Executed flawlessly, the simultaneously proactive and responsive nature of an omnidynamic approach can lead to “anywhere between three to eight times ROI on top of any kind of air-covered media,” she reports.

CMI/Compas grew revenue just under 7% in 2022, to $253.1 million from $220.2 in 2021. The company continues to work with a who’s who of pharma and healthcare organizations, including Johnson & Johnson, GSK, AbbVie, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb. 

Head count rose in tandem, with CMI/Compas starting the year with 813 people under its roofs and ending it with 966. Notable executive hires included EVP, group client director, CMI Media Group Rebecca Mills; SVP, group media lead, CMI Media Group Egbavwe Pela; director, global media, CMI Media Group Matthew Durham; and director, innovation, CMI Media Group Kristofer Doerfler.

The company promoted Andrew Miller to EVP, digital activation, CMI Media Group and Jose Ferreira to EVP, product strategy and transformation, CMI Media Group. Woodland notes that Ferreira’s role involves oversight of much of the technical capability demanded by the omnidynamic approach. 

As for other recent CMI/Compas highlights, Woodland points to the opening of a London office. “Global work is an exciting area for us, because I think the ex-U.S. market today resembles what the U.S. market looked like in 2005,” he says, adding that its appeal transcends business opportunities: “It’s really such a huge growth opportunity for our people.”

At the same time, CMI/Compas continues to stare down the same staffing headaches faced by many of its agency-world colleagues. “Our biggest challenge is hiring great people,” Dorfman says succinctly.

That challenge could remain for some time, given CMI/Compas’ growth ambitions. That said, Woodland acknowledges that there are worse problems to have.

“Our growth as an agency has facilitated a lot of upward mobility for our people,” he says. “Our diversity of services has opened up so many new pathways to grow with us.”

. . .

Our marketing role model…

Women. In a year where rights are being challenged across the world and at a moment when we are still so many steps away from true equality, women are standing up for themselves and others. It’s inspirational — and it’s a movement. As we look at the effects of inequality on health, we see this as a poignant time where brands can step up to join and support women in the fight, and literally change the world. — Dorfman

Click here to see CMI Media Group and Compas’ Agency 100 2022 Profile.

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From the June 01, 2023 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media