Publicis Media is launching “Commerce” as a Publicis Media global practice dedicated to commerce strategy, media and marketplace investment, as well as content and merchandising.

Ali Nehme will serve as Global Practice Lead, Commerce, Publicis Media, and report into Digitas Global Brand President Michael Kahn, who will also serve as executive sponsor of the Commerce Practice.

Nehme was formerly President of Commerce & Innovation for Publicis Media EMEA, where he drove the advancement of the commerce capability across the region with Starcom and Zenith, and for key global accounts such as L’Oréal, Nestlé, P&G and Samsung.

In this new role, Nehme will be responsible for accelerating Commerce capability and talent and unlocking new client opportunities. He will lead a team of Regional Commerce Leads in the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions and also deploy an agency-embedded talent model with commerce leads directly managing client strategy and implementation.

Together, this group of experts will focus on three key areas:

Strategy and acceleration: Understanding the shopper needs and journey to identify and drive the areas of growth, while helping clients manage the complexity of their Direct-to-Consumers (D2C) sites and e-retailers.
Media and investment: Planning and linking media to commerce, allowing investment recommendation and management between the brands D2C sites and e-retailers.
Content and merchandising: Managing and elevating the product presence on the e-retailers through content design, production and optimization to improve brand visibility and consumer experience.

The capability will work seamlessly with Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Communications commerce offerings to bring together technology infrastructure, media and creative for an end-to-end commerce business solution.

“Commerce is a massive growth opportunity for our business and the industry-at-large,” says Steve King, CEO, Publicis Media, in a statement. “Ali’s deep expertise and experience guiding commerce strategy and capabilities for key agencies and their clients will help us effectively lead and manage the intersection of media and commerce to maximize brand sales online and across marketplaces.”