Campaign Imminent: Harman taps new AOR after CMO departs (Score 51)

Sales Lead: Harman consolidated many of its AOR duties under one new agency partner, Havas Group.

• The agency will now lead brand strategy, creative, content, media, and production while providing selected social media and influencer marketing support.
• Havas's remit will include all brands, including JBL, Harman Kardon, and B2B products, services, and tech solutions.
• This announcement comes not long after Harman kicked off a CMO search; in July 2022, it parted ways with Ralph Santana, who had served as its EVP and global CMO for almost a decade.
• The brand will likely:
  • Launch new promotional material soon
  • Pursue additional influencer partnerships
  • Return to heavier ad spend
  • Make additional agency hires
• Target demographic: 
  • Businesses, particularly automakers and enterprise customers
  • Millennials

Additional spending insights:

• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: Since the beginning of 2022, Harman has spent roughly $4.6m on digital ads.
  • YTD data: The brand has earned around 489.7m digital impressions YTD via Instagram (40%), desktop video/YouTube (32%), Facebook (25%), and desktop display (3%) ads.
  • Last year: In 2021, Harman spent approximately $6.7m on this channel, just a touch more than 3x the approximately $2.2m spent in 2020.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The brand utilizes OOH, radio, print (B2B magazines), and local broadcast.
  • It sponsors podcasts such as Stuff To Blow Your Mind, Oilers NOW with Bob Stauffer, and Best of The Steve Harvey Morning Show.
  • Harman additionally utilizes experiential activations.
  • As you can tell in the video above, its sustainability efforts provide cause marketing opportunities.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get in touch soon to offer PR and/or digital analytics services.
  • Additional agency reviews could easily follow this one, especially once Harman selects a new CMO.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​Havas Group: Brand strategy, creative, content, media, production, social media, and influencer marketing AOR

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Kantar and Podchaser.