Razorfish vs WebFX

Agency 'Black Box' Is Breaking, Says Horizon's Bob Lord

Bob Lord, president of Horizon Media and former CEO of Razorfish who led digital transformation at IBM, argues that many agencies are focused narrowly on cost-cutting with AI rather than using AI to drive advertiser growth. Lord says supply-chain opacity, siloed tech stacks and hidden programmatic costs persist, and that transparency, open-source approaches and performance-based compensation models can help agencies become true growth partners. At Horizon, Lord says the agency is shifting toward payment tied to client business outcomes and is pushing for transparent contracts that pass publisher discounts to clients. He calls for systems that let clients self-serve campaign insights and for tighter integration of creative and media to deliver measurable business impact.

• Bob Lord is president of Horizon Media and previously served as global CEO of Razorfish and led digital transformation at IBM.
• Lord says Horizon Media is shifting its model toward performance-based compensation, getting paid when marketers achieve business goals.
• Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg includes buying-transparency clauses in contracts and passes publisher discounts to clients, according to Lord.

Data Trust Crisis: Customer Data Quality Declines

The article warns that marketing organizations face a growing "data trust" crisis: privacy changes, fragmented platforms, and AI-generated/inferred signals are degrading the accuracy and reliability of customer data. It promotes a MarTech Conference session (online, Sept. 2, 2026) titled “The data trust crisis: Why your customer data is getting worse,” featuring speakers from Actable, Razorfish, Tealium, and Ana Mourão, which will examine technical and regulatory drivers of data decay and methods (e.g., confidence-scored approaches, governance playbooks) for maintaining personalization and measurement when datasets are imperfect.

• MarTech is running a session titled “The data trust crisis: Why your customer data is getting worse” at its online MarTech Conference on Sept. 2, 2026.
• Speakers announced for the session include Craig Howard (chief solutions officer, Actable), Ana Mourão (founder and author of The Experimental Marketer Framework), Ryan Warren (chief CRM officer, Razorfish), and Zack Wenthe (director of product marketing and customer data evangelist, Tealium).
• The article states privacy changes, fragmented platforms, and AI-inferred signals are actively undermining customer data quality and personalization.

WebFX Blog Adds New Articles on Rebranding, SEO, and Marketing After Acquisitions

The WebFX blog's 'What's New' section now features four new articles published on 9/17/2026, including 'Should You Rebrand After an Acquisition?', 'SEO During a Merger or Acquisition', 'How to Identify Underperforming Locations', and 'How to Get Faster Marketing Returns After an Acquisition'. The blog also expanded from 157 to 158 pages.

WebFX Blog: New Articles on Post-Acquisition Marketing, SEO During M&A, and More

The WebFX blog added several new articles on September 17, 2026, including 'Should You Rebrand After an Acquisition?', 'SEO During a Merger or Acquisition', 'How to Identify Underperforming Locations', and 'How to Get Faster Marketing Returns After an Acquisition'. These are part of a series of new blog posts.

WebFX Blog: New Marketing Articles on Post-Acquisition Growth and Multi-Location Budgeting

The WebFX blog features new articles including 'How to Forecast Post-Acquisition Growth: The Playbook Behind 1.8X Faster Revenue Growth' and 'How to Allocate Marketing Budget Across Multiple Locations and Brands', published on 9/15/2026.