In today’s newsletter: Bidstack’s executive leadership buys the company back from investors; S4 Capital could be vulnerable to a hostile takeover; and Meta experiences yet another overspending glitch.
If you’re a marketer who wants to hear a comforting bedtime story about how brand marketing will endure during the impending recession, you’re not going to get it from Sir Martin Sorrell. The conventional thinking goes that if companies maintain their investment in brand marketing to stay top-of-mind, even when the going gets tough, they’ll be […]
Can You Samba Alone? Samba TV filed its S-1 on Tuesday, often the precursor to an IPO (although many are filed in vain). Samba is one of a few automated content recognition (ACR) companies that are specialists in recognizing and attributing content played on a smart TV. But the ACR market is tough for independents. […]
MightyHive, the programmatic and data arm under S4 Capital, said Tuesday it has merged with data and analytics firm Digodat in Latin America. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Digodat has more than 40 employees and offices in Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia. The firm expands MightyHive’s Latin American presence beyond Brazil, where it […]
Sir Martin Sorrell thinks the term “social distancing” could use a rebrand, since we’re actually communicating more than ever, albeit virtually. “I think social distancing is not the right way of putting it,” he says. “It’s physical distancing.” As founder and CEO of S4 Capital, Sir Martin is keeping an eye on his 2,500 employees […]
If there’s one thing that gets Martin Sorrell’s goat, it’s the accusation that he doesn’t care about creativity. “People say I’m a bean counter or an accountant, and I don’t mind that, they’re just having a dig,” said Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital, the digital-focused holding company upstart he founded on his exit from […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. China Who? TikTok wants to distance itself from its Chinese ownership as it faces scrutiny from US lawmakers and regulators. Its senior-most executive, Alex Zhu, gave an interview to The New York Times, dismissing concerns that the social app could help China spy on […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Castree Out GroupM North America CEO Tim Castree has stepped down from his role after less than a year on the job, Business Insider reports. Castree was promoted to CEO in late 2018, after leading the merger of media agencies MEC and Maxus, with […]
Martin Sorrell went on the attack in a fireside chat with Accenture Interactive senior managing director Glen Hartman. The S4 executive chairman fixated on Accenture’s operating and incentive structure and how much autonomy creative agencies maintained within its network. “Accenture talks about one P&L,” he said during the session at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO New York. […]
S4 Capital had a solid second quarter earnings report on Wednesday, with revenue up 41.6% to $108.5 million in the first half of 2019. But that didn’t stop CEO Martin Sorrell from spending a significant portion of the earnings call throwing shade at his competitors, especially his former empire WPP. When asked whether S4 needs […]
