Is WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell gradually dismantling Kantar, his big research offering? We only ask because WPP this week announced the second of two deals which see big slugs of Kantar business turned into minority stakes in rival companies. ...
Read More »Guardian sells most of in-house digital agency to WPP
You wouldn’t usually see the Guardian newspaper (left) and WPP as natural bedfellows (WPP is close to Guardian-hating News Corp, handling all its UK advertising) but now, it seems, they are. WPP’s Kantar research operation has bought a majority stake ...
Read More »WPP’s Millward Brown buys EffectiveBrands
WPP qualitative research operation Millward Brown has bought Amsterdam’s EffectiveBrands marketing consultancy to combine it with its own consultancy operation Millward Brown Optimor. The unit will now be known as Millward Brown Vermeer, the consultancy with a pearl earring presumably. ...
Read More »Kantar buys PR monitoring firm Precise Media
WPP is still busily acquiring away and also sticking to its strategy of trying to build research operation Kantar into one of the world’s go-to information providers. Now Kantar has bought a majority stake in the UK’s Precise Media Group, ...
Read More »WPP goes digital shopping again with Designercity in Hong Kong and UK TV business SecondSync
WPP is still the biggest western marcoms company operating in the China region, even after the PubliCom merger, and boss Sir Martin Sorrell (left) is still shopping busily for assets. It has just acquired a majority stake in yet another ...
Read More »WPP’s Sorrell to get his way over pay this time but shareholders look for ways to rein him in
It looks as though WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell (left) is set to trouser the £17.6m the company decided he was worth last year as shareholders at this year’s AGM (set for Wednesday) will vote fairly narrowly in favour. But ...
Read More »Omnicom has the same Europe blues as Publicis Groupe – only rather more of them
Investors prefer companies to be boring when it comes to announcing quarterly results and the marcoms gang looks unlikely to disappoint them. Omnicom has followed Publicis Groupe in announcing more or less ‘as you were’ figures for the first quarter ...
Read More »Five key questions investors should ask WPP
WPP announces its 2012 results on Friday and the odds are that they’re going to be good – if the recent hike in its share price is anything to go by. WPP, because of its scale and the number of ...
Read More »CBS confirms plans to sell outdoor business outside the US – will WPP’s Kinetic be a buyer?
CBS CEO Leslie Moonves (pictured) has confirmed that he wants to offload its outdoor business outside the US (including the UK) while it plans to turn itself into a REIT, essentially a property investment company, in its home market. REITs ...
Read More »