• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 7, 2014

Omnicom Media Group has signed a $200 million per year deal with iHeartMedia, formerly known as Clear Channel Communications, to develop customized media programs for Omnicom’s clients using iHeartMedia’s events, sponsorship opportunities and technologies, in addition to the company’s core broadcast assets, the companies announced Tuesday.

The agreement gives Omnicom clients access to iHeartMedia’s special in-house creative services, including original campaign conceptualization and planning, as well as the company’s new programmatic buying platform. It also includes a joint research component, with iHeartMedia and Omnicom collaborating to enable more precise measurement of campaign effectiveness and media mix modeling, drawing on data from across the company’s various platforms.

John Swift, Omnicom Media Group’s CEO for North American Investment, stated: “Our partnership with iHeartMedia exemplifies Omnicom Media Group's go to market approach, focusing on doing deeper, more significant deals with partners who are innovating in their category and providing more opportunities for our clients to engage with consumers in meaningful and memorable ways.”

This is just the latest in a series of strategic partnerships for Omnicom focused on programmatic advertising technology.

Last month, the advertising and media giant announced an agency-wide partnership with Facebook that will allow it to leverage the social network’s new Atlas platform on behalf of two big clients, Pepsi and Intel, using Neustar’s technology.

On the mobile and social front, in March Omnicom became the first major ad holding company to sign an agency-wide deal with Facebook’s Instagram platform. The pioneering deal calls for close collaboration and a high degree of creative control for the photo-sharing site, intended to ensure ads are contextually appropriate.

Omnicom has also been making organizational changes to keep pace with marketers’ growing focus on programmatic buying. In June of this year it created a new “center of excellence” in Annalect, its data and analytics agency, headed by Slavi Samardzija (formerly of WPP’s Wunderman) in the newly created position of chief analytics officer.