WPP is claiming a leap forward in the digital space race by announcing the WPP-Adobe Alliance which it says will “design, develop, sell, deploy and operate solutions at a high level of expertise using Adobe technology throughout its network of companies.” The companies in question include Acceleration, Cognifide, KBM Group, Mirum, VML and Wunderman.
WPP has been working closely with Adobe anyway as, no doubt, do other marcoms companies. So what’s new?
WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell (left) says: “The joint Adobe-WPP proposition is a very powerful one: Adobe’s leading marketing technology solutions alongside WPP’s unique ability to leverage the collective capabilities of our agencies, and our proprietary data, for the benefit of our global client base.
“The WPP-Adobe Alliance extends our combined offering beyond the footprint of a single WPP company through the creation of bespoke teams, enabling clients to respond more strategically and more efficiently to their biggest marketing challenges.”
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says: “Through the WPP-Adobe Alliance, WPP clients can now yield the greatest return from their Adobe Marketing Cloud investments. We are excited about taking our successful digital marketing partnership with WPP to another level.”
Whether or not this amounts to more than another move in the ancient game of confuse-a-client we’ll have to wait and see. Sitting through a digital pitch must be a nightmare as agencies (and companies like Adobe) pull another supposedly game-breaking rabbit out of the hat.
This is mere bollocks.
All of those groups mentioned above are Y&R technology units – the other WPP networks wouldn’t commit. They’ve all been at the past three Adobe summits, climbing all over each other to be the lead dog on the leash.
Adobe wants one thing: to parse out the services work on their software deals. They must have trained, variable headcount to build and execute as soon as the software deal is signed. Adobe Clients have long complained they needed more creative than technical from the consultancies so Adobe thought WPP could deliver the creative cache Acuity/Accenture and Sapient do not. WPP also suggested they would do media tagging, analysis and data integration through GroupM and KBMG. Seemed like a great idea. But Adobe has been slow to commit to guaranteed revenues.