The $20 billion French advertising giant Publicis has followed Woolworths and Virgin Australia into the rush to buy up Australian data analytics firms.
Publicis-owned global digital agency, Razorfish, one of dozens of media, advertising and digital firms owned by the world's third biggest communications conglomerate, signed a deal last week to buy Sydney-based 2Datafish.
Established just five years ago 2DataFish is working with the likes of Telstra, big banks, retailers and insurance groups overhauling their focus on omnichannel customer experience programs and analytics but grappling with huge loads of data and disparate technology platforms. 
The acquisition is partly aimed at consulting firms like Deloitte Digital and Accenture Interactive making fast gains in the booming corporate arena of "digital transformation" and "customer experience design".
This new wave of technology-led investment is seen as another reason for media companies facing advertising growth headwinds. Combined IT and marketing budgets are diverting from traditional media and marketing activities into building better customer platforms and customer experiences, which helps management meet Net Promoter Score (NPS) performance targets. According to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit and marketing automation firm Marketo last week, marketing spending has pushed through $US1 trillion globally, but 80 per cent of marketing executives in the global report say they need to "restructure marketing".
It is mostly linked to new digital platforms like Uber, Apple and Facebook, which have created higher public expectations of how any interaction with a company product or service should be experienced. Crunching data, extracting customer insights and preferences and linking enterprise systems are the first steps.
Woolworths paid $30 million for a 50 per cent stake in Quantium last year and Virgin has just acquired Torque for its frequent flyer program. The acquisition of 2DataFish, founded in 2010 by Steven and Kim Hann, brings a long line-up big corporate names with it to the Publicis-Razorfish camp, including Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, Fairfax Media, Suncorp, IAG and GE.
Razorfish Australia managing director Doug Chapman said the 2DataFish deal was a response to surging interest among blue chips for "digital transformation" programs.
The acquisition was also struck with an eye to countering the intensifying turf wars between the large management consulting and tech firms and the traditional advertising and marketing services sector, dominated by four global holding companies - WPP, IPG, Omnicom and Razorfish parent Publicis. These marketing services firms also control the placement of up to 70 per cent of the $700 billion spent in global paid media advertising. Deloitte Digital, Accenture Interactive, McKinsey & Co, PwC, EY, KMPG, BCG and other tier one firms have all developed marketing, customer and data analytics practices.
"Our competitive set has changed dramatically," Mr Chapman said. "We compete on a daily basis with Deloittes and Accenture and most of the big consultancies. I wouldn't want to draw a line that we've moved away from our creative or marketing heritage: it's about bringing a lot of it together."
Razorfish has recently completed large "customer facing" digital design and user experience programs for Foxtel and Coles Insurance.
"A lot of that work sits below the surface," Mr Chapman said. "The customer just sees an amazing experience change, but that experience change is a result of a ton of work. It was almost 18 months replatforming Foxtel."
Accenture Interactive has also been busy buying up digital agencies here and abroad - it acquired Melbourne-based Reactive last   December and digital design firm Fjord in 2013.
Accenture Interactive Australian managing director Michael Buckley, a former Razorfish executive, said while Accenture Interactive did not want to produce advertising campaigns or "ideas", the move into customer strategy and product and service design meant they were dealing with marketing. "If the chief marketing officer owns the customer, and because the customer is demanding a better experience, we are managing to help the CMO become very relevant to boards," Mr Buckley said. "The customer is dictating their experience and it's what they're used to through apps like Uber and Google. We're taking a more design-led approach as opposed to a more technical approach, and that's where the Fjord and Reactive acquisitions come into it."