WPP

As media agencies strive to become much more to clients than ad buyers, some are making technology consulting services an increasingly visible part of their offering. Maxus’s global CEO Lindsay Pattison observes that her agency is applying the same principles to technology solutions that it does to the traditional discipline of media buying, and it […]

As the media landscape continues to shift, clients’ expectations of their media agencies are also changing — and becoming more demanding in a sense. “I think it’s becoming the norm now for clients, quite rightly, to expect flawless execution and great value for money and brilliant client service, and I think now that we’re seeing […]

What does the flow of attention across social platforms and news article look like when it is actually happening? That’s what WPP’s advertising clients may get to find out, thanks to the ad holding group’s new partnership with BuzzFeed. Announced last month, the deal sees GroupM and WPP constituents gain a “creative residency” amongst BuzzFeed content producers and a […]

Why did you get in to advertising? For Brian Lesser, it was because his dad showed him the ropes. Now Lesser runs WPP-owned Xaxis, one of the technology companies helping make advertising more targeted and more relevant. “When I was a kid, my father ran advertising agencies … I always liked the commercials better than the […]

Going back a decade, when Millward Brown’s annual BrandZ study tracking the 100 most valuable global brands was first released, only one Chinese company made the list. Now there are 14, including the tech giants Tencent and Alibaba. “Most of them are big brands, but they’re not truly globalized brands yet,” says Doreen Wang, Global […]

In the past 10 years, since the WPP-owned global brand consultancy Millward Brown has tracked the value of brands with its BRANDZ 100 rankings, there have been many changes.  Over that period, nearly half of the companies have changed.  This upheaval  has been powered by two major factors:  geography and technology innovation observes Sir Martin […]

It was a WPP agency that devised The Financial Times’ once-famous marketing slogan, “No FT, no comment.” So, what does WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell think of Pearson’s sale of its newspaper to Japan’s Nikkei for £844m ($1.3bn) this week? Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, Sorrell urges Nikkei to thaw an approach to advertisers he […]

CANNES — It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world if you’re an ad agency exec right now. On the one hand, you have a palette of unlimited possibility at your fingertips – on the other hand, so does everybody else. Renowned media and technology M&A advisor and banker Terence Kawaja of Luma Partners is releasing […]

CANNES – WPP is “placing its bets” with a variety of investments and initiatives outside what has been typically been a media holding company, explains CEO Sir Martin Sorrell in this interview with Beet.TV  The latest is a content creation agency created in alliance with Daily Mail and Snapchat, the company announced this morning in Cannes. […]

When Martin Sorrell bought in to WPP in 1985, it was the start of a journey that would end up making the world’s largest advertising holding group. What most people probably don’t know, however, is that, along the way, Sorrell nearly made a very costly mistake. Asked by Beet.TV in this video interview to regale his biggest career setback, […]

Last year’s deal in which WPP’s Xaxis programmatic unit divested its ad-serving technology to ad tech outfit AppNexus was forged in the snowy hills of the Swiss Alps. “For five years, we had a good relationship,” AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “Last January in Davos, I found 15 minutes with […]

What does a $31 billion market cap earn the world’s largest ad agency holding group? A status as amongst the most diversified and forward-thinking of communications agencies out there. When Sir Martin Sorrell took a controlling stake in what was then a shopping basket maker, Wire & Plastic Products, in 1985, little did most peers suspect […]

Advertisers’ quest for buying only ads that can be viewed by human users may end up costing them more to advertise in the long run, says an influential digital advertising decision-maker. “If we work out the fraud and viewability issues, it’s going to have a constraining effect on inventory,” David J. Moore, President of WPP Digital […]

The role of the media agency is dramatically changing with entrance of “biased” tech companies, says Michael I. Roth, CEO of Interpublic Group. He says the role of the unbiased, “agnostic”  media agency is more important than ever. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, says that there will be an increasing “blurring of the lines” […]

LAS VEGAS –  Big brands can buy paid impressions, but the value of marketing is found increasingly in storytelling —  by creating compelling content that connects with consumers, largely around a brand’s own property says Shenan Reed, president of digital at MEC, NA in this interview with Beet.TV She also explains the value of the […]

LAS VEGAS — Don’t go expecting any major bumps in the economic road in the year ahead. The CEO of the world’s biggest ad agency holding group, WPP, says 2015 will have a familiar look. “Overall, I see ’15 being slightly better than ’14,” Sir Martin Sorrell tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “This time […]

LAS VEGAS — Amazon has become a $1 billion advertising platform, but that’s just the beginning of e-commerce related digital advertising says Jordan Bitterman, Chief Strategist of Mindshare NA, in this interview with Beet.TV Coined recently as “inline” advertising, Bitterman sees big opportunities for publishers and brands around advertising that appears “inline” with consumer decisioning […]

LAS VEGAS – Advertising and communications agency holding group WPP’s CEO Sir Martin Sorrell says the company has invested in new sports marketing firm Bruin Sports Capital to unify its broad offering for a live sports entertainment industry that will continue to boom. “The rights prices around (global) sporting events …  have continued to rise… much […]

Modi, the recently launched advanced TV unit of WPP’s GroupM, is working with video adtech company Videology to deliver television advertising to specific cable and satellite users in real-time, using programmatic ad decisioning technology, explains Jamie Power, Senior Partner at Modi, in this interview with Beet.TV This new scenario will allow the agency to sell […]

Wikipedia may describe WPP as an “advertising and public relations company” – but CEO Sir Martin Sorrell has a much broader definition that that. Compelled by a muted ad outlook, the world’s largest ad company will go on investing in content makers and taking the opportunity to produce its own, he tells Beet.TV in this video […]