• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 21, 2014

When Leo Burnett announced a deal with Huffington Post, earlier this month, the pair positioned the partnership as the first “agency and publisher alliance poised to reinvent how people engage with brands.” On Tuesday, Mark Renshaw, Chief Innovation Officer at the Publicis unit, elaborated on said reinvention. For agencies and publishers, it’s a “new way of working,” Renshaw told attendees of OMMA Chicago. “We bring our data about brands,” while HuffPo brings its data about what its readers are reading and watching, he said. Focused on improving processes, Renshaw said the partners have already reduced the time it takes to plan and execute a campaign down from eight to four weeks. It’s an “acceleration thing for both of us,” he said. The deal -- or what Renshaw prefers to call a “collaboration” -- is also serving to position brands in a more impactful fashion. For example, rather than a weight loss solution, Special K can be presented to HuffPo readers as key to their “weight management” strategies, Renshaw said. The approach is helping brands “play out of their categories,” Renshaw said, and be “iconic.”