On the media agency side of the business, there is a small group of people who have been deep into the evolution of programmatic advertising. Anagram general manager Jenna Umbrianna is one of them. Starting as an analyst at Hill Holliday, Umbrianna managed the agency’s programmatic media practice in 2010 and eventually became the svp and general manager of Havas’ programmatic strategy and trading divisions across the holding company’s North American client roster. Arriving at Anagram in September 2017 as chief client officer, Umbrianna helped more than double client investment and facilitated formal partnerships with six major technology companies, growing the agency’s offering from primarily display programmatic to fully cross-channel programmatic. In April, she was elevated to general manager. “Jenna has been a force of innovation throughout her career,” says Joe Zawadzki, CEO of MediaMath.
“She was an early adopter of technology-enabled, data-driven marketing in digital, and has been indefatigable ever since. What Jenna accomplishes is extraordinary.” Looking ahead, Umbrianna sees the ability to get data via walled gardens (from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google) as a continuing challenge. “It’s hard to get a complete view of an end-to-end consumer journey if you’ve got some big blind spots,” she says. But Anagram’s methodology, which includes in-depth surveying for additional consumer insight, has helped close the data gap and is a boon for the agency’s clients, including one in the travel space that elevated the agency from a U.S.-centric to a global footprint. “When you make that shift from being on somebody’s roster to someone they trust enough that you’re an extension of their team,” says Umbrianna, “that’s always the most rewarding for me.” —D.Z.