Finance

M&C Saatchi PLC is having a gruelling time at the moment, forced into a £6.4m provision over too-early revenue recognition and some assets on its balance sheet that aren’t worth what the agency thought they were. It’s re-iterated its profit ...

I started in this industry the very week, as it happens, that Google launched. It was 1998 and the great digital disruption was underway. Agencies were already on the back foot, deep in battle with the research companies like Millward ...

Out of Home is becoming an all-singing and dancing medium in the digital age and UK digital specialist Ocean Outdoor seems to be becoming a sports broadcaster as well, using its giant screens including London’s Piccadilly Lights. Already this year ...

Publicis Groupe has retained the Novartis global media account, reckoned to be worth $600m. The Swiss pharma giant was previously handled by Starcom and now Starcom is combining with Publicis’ new data firm Epsilon in an entity called NovartisONE2. WPP, ...

There are influencers all over the place it seems. Ogilvy UK’s InfluenceO “proprietary influencer tool” claims to host over one billion of them in 60,000 categories. Which makes you wonder how high (or low) the bar is set to be ...

Marketing, and the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), is changing profoundly and permanently. Just like any other business function, marketing has been buffeted by widespread technology-led disruption and the effect of elevated consumer expectations bleeding across traditional industry ...

For the directors of M&C Saatchi, wrestling with a major accounting issue – chiefly booking fees too early that’s led to them making a £6.4m provision – it may seem all a bit like déjà vu. Back in 1995 when ...

Oh dear, M&C Saatchi shares tumbled 20 per cent today after the quoted agency disclosed it had miscounted £4.9m of revenue. This included counting outstanding fees as revenue and non-performing assets like old software on its balance sheet. M&C is ...

Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4Capital has added a third major leg to its business, buying what it calls Europe’s largest influencer agency IMA to merge with its MediaMonks digital content business. Both are based in Amsterdam. S4 also owns the MightyHive ...