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LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Brand Innovators, the largest community of brand marketers, have announced their fifth annual Sports Marketing Upfronts presented by 72andSunny and hosted at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles (19800 South Main Street, Carson), Tuesday-Thursday, February 8-10, 2022.

The three-day summit will bring together marketing executives from Fortune 500 and other leading brands ahead of the big game to learn and share how they are leveraging the intersection of sport and entertainment to drive business results in an ever-changing landscape. Current brands featured include: Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bose Corporation, Chipotle Mexican Grill, FanDuel, Nationwide, PepsiCo, United Airlines, and many more! ️

“We are so excited for the latest edition of The Brand Innovators Sports Marketing Summit in LA, featuring the ‘who’s who’ of senior marketers and industry leaders from the NFL and brands like AB InBev, PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, Microsoft, Nationwide, Danone, EA Sports, State Farm, and many more,” said David Teicher, Chief Content Officer, Brand Innovators. “We are bringing the community together to tackle the latest and most innovative sports marketing and sponsorship efforts, and the most important topics, challenges, and opportunities facing the industry today, as marketers continue to strive for ever-elusive cultural relevance.”

“With one of (if not the most) entertaining sporting events of the year held in our backyard, it felt only fitting to collaborate with industry creators and marketers to celebrate innovation,” said Damaune Journey, Global Chief Growth Officer, 72andSunny. “As an agency that believes in creativity that wins and diverse points of view, we are thrilled to be this year’s leading sponsor and to showcase those at the forefront of game-changing ideas.”

“Across every sector, marketing is transforming, driven by new consumer behaviors, needs and emerging technologies. Stagwell’s agencies have a long track record of helping brands innovate at the big game, often setting the year’s agenda for creative brand marketing,” said Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn. “We’re proud to partner with Brand Innovators and 72andSunny this year to discuss the marketing transformations underway.”

The summit will be a hybrid event with in-person programming reserved exclusively for qualified brand-side marketers and active paying sponsors. The summit will also be made available virtual to the public. Attendees may register at brand-innovators.com.

About Brand Innovators:
Brand Innovators is an exclusive community of brand marketers from the world’s top brands, gathering regularly for thought leadership conferences, virtual livecasts, and social events. Formed in 2011, Brand Innovators focuses on sharing knowledge about marketing and technology among fellow industry leaders.

About 72andSunny:
72andSunny is a global creative agency that believes in creativity that wins. With offices in Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam, Singapore and Sydney, 72andSunny is on a mission to expand and diversify the creative class.

72andSunny has been recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies for two years in a row, a two-time “Agency of the Year” winner for Advertising Age and Adweek and Entertainment Agency of the Festival at Cannes Lions in 2021.  For more information, visit 72andSunny.com.

About Stagwell, Inc.:
Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

Contact: Meghan Hubert
meghan@brand-innovators.com
201-783-3867

CONTACT

Mark Penn

FEATURING

Marketing Frontiers is a new series from Stagwell exploring the methods, mediums, and messes modern marketers will grapple with over the next decade as they chart transformation in the discipline. This January, Stagwell is exploring the new frontiers of Augmented Reality.

Event-based AR can help marketers attract audiences at scale for new forms of shared, blended, and branded experiences.

We tend to envision AR as a means of distraction but there is transformative power in combining the physical and the augmented for highly immersive, interactive experiences.

AR at live sporting events can help create persistent, relevant, and shared experiences that will engage casual fans while enhancing the experience for sports fanatics.

Augmented reality has transformed from a bespectacled fad to an emergent marketing frontier for modern brands in recent years. Still, there is still much work to be done to create AR audiences at scale, attracting the masses.

Why is it hard to scale AR? Because – to date – AR has focused on the individual. We believe that the transformational power of AR is in creating experiences that bring people together around a common place and purpose. Purely functional applications like seeing how a piece of furniture might fit into your home are useful but do little to attract the mass consumer audience AR needs to go mainstream.

What if instead we focus our AR experimentation on augmenting shared experiences like sporting events, in stadiums with captive audiences that are naturally some of the most enthusiastic consumer bases in the world? As sports leagues adapted to the pandemic, marketers learned consumers hunger for more dynamic engagement with their favorite teams and players. They want to get closer to the action, closer to the players, and bond with one another over experiences they’ll remember for a lifetime.

Let’s use AR to get there. We believe sports brands have a strong opportunity to power more immersive and meaningful experiences with the next frontier of augmented reality: event-based AR.

The promise of event-based AR is to bring content to context, providing for more immersive and meaningful experiences connected to the events and people around us. AR can fuel moments of catharsis for the consumer, creating powerful emotional connections to brands, stadiums, and other key fan and player locations.

We already know sports fandom is a lifelong affiliation. Augmented reality can help brands extend that fever into a new dimension, offering interaction, socialization and new forms of connection

ARound helps venues and retailers create augmented reality experiences for live events, bringing audiences together at scale where they can play, interact, and socialize in completely new and exciting ways.

‘Mario Party But With 30,000 People’

Sports marketers can use augmented reality to power stronger consumer experiences with fun, relevant, and shared brand moments.

Building Fun Moments

Every Thanksgiving, one relative is bound to recount an infamous fly-ball he caught from the seats at a baseball game growing up. And even the least sports-engaged Bostonian becomes a model hometown fan when the Patriots are due for more Super Bowl wizardry. Sports marketers know best that the memories fans make at sporting events are some of the most persistent experiences they’ll have in their lives.

So why not use AR to bring more of those experiences to a wider swath of fans?

Everyone might not be able to carry a flyball away with them as a lifelong souvenir, but every fan can experience moments that will turn into memories. With AR, fans in seats with lackluster angles can be brought into the action while players personalities can become larger than life, creating memorable moments that will dominate social media. Adding more experiential touchpoints via AR can make a standard Sunday game fodder for “remember when!” stories for years to come.

Serving Relevant Content

Using AR to add context to content can help brands further engage consumers on location, arming them with an agile new tool for building the compelling experiences that drive value. With event-based AR integrations, brands can adapt flexible content based on everything from proximity to the main stage to the affiliations of fans.  Advertising in-game can be tailored, too, to reflect first-party inputs like a consumer’s favorite sports team, hometown, and more. Ultimately, the tech will serve as a powerful way to recapture and convert attention otherwise lost to consumers’ mobile browsing habits during live events.

Keeping fans engaged before, during, and after the game with personalized content enables a myriad of brand integrations. With just baseline first-party data input by users about team fandom, hometown, favorite players and preferences for merchandise, a whole universe of addressable AR content opens up, activated through their mobile devices.

Creating Shared Social Experiences

Let’s be honest: while fans may be physically captive, of a sort, at in-person sporting events, it’s another game to capture and keep their attention. At the same time, sports is inherently social – something that positions it well to beat the AR trap of failing to scale by being mired in individual experiences. Leveraging AR to extend shared moments through every part of the game will help build closer connections between teams, players, and their fans, bringing talent on the field to life in multi-sensory, bigger-than-life arenas. 

Layering gamified content, player stats and optional replays in AR during games can keep fans focused on and interacting with the field. Brands might stoke team rivalries with interactive competitions during games, with fans’ actions contributing to an aggregate team score. At the end of a game, fans from the winning team might get virtual collectibles or NFTs that build up to larger prizes with more and more engagement at AR-enabled locations, ultimately winning season passes or exclusive IRL merchandise. During intermissions, fans could open their phones to participate in competitions like tug of war fueled by the in-app engagement of 30,000 people, with rival team mascots scaled as AR avatars on the field. You can even imagine beloved mascots like The Phillie Phanatic or Mr. Met swarming the field with AR-doubles for intermission shows that extend beyond the physical to engage fans throughout the entire stadium, not just close to the field.

While our focus is ostensibly on AR moments connected to physical locations and powered by mobile, it’s not hard to see how marketers can activate AR-integrated apps or hardware to plug at-home fans into live sports.

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Agencies Combine Under MMI Nameplate, Delivering Enhanced Media and Integrated Communications Power

New York, NY, January 19, 2022 (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell Inc., the challenger network built to transform marketing, today announced the combination of Stagwell Media Network agencies MMI and Media Kitchen under the MMI brand. The announcement comes on the heels of MMI’s continued year-over-year growth for the past five years, expansion of its partnership with a leading CPG manufacturer, and further diversification of its Amazon work.

The move creates a dynamic new consultancy predicated on brand performance and innovation. The combined entity boasts 175 employees who offer deep expertise in media strategy, planning and buying, performance marketing, influencer, public relations, and creative content.                                       

“By bringing these two agencies together, we are offering a strong alternative solution to drive measurable growth for modern brands,” Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn said. “Our challenger positioning is rooted in creating new kinds of collaborations and MMI plus Media Kitchen creates a media speedboat capable of innovating quickly for clients.”

“Media Kitchen’s ability to design and implement transformational media strategies perfectly complements MMI’s nimble brand creativity and innovation services. Combined, they offer a future-facing answer for modern marketeers looking for joined-up insight, ideas, and connections that drive growth,” said James Townsend, Global CEO of the Stagwell Media Network. “This is about creating opportunities for our people to learn, collaborate and express themselves, and help offer clients more capabilities in one dynamic agency.”

The enhanced agency includes 130 employees from MMI and 45 from Media Kitchen. Collective clients and experience include Amazon, Gillette, Loews Hotels, Olay, Pantene, and Waste Management. Core office locations for the combined entity will remain unchanged, with strongholds in New York and Houston and presences in Cincinnati, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, and Montreal.    

MMI CEO Maggie Malek, a Houston Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree who began her career in the Army Reserves, will head the strengthened organization. A key architect of the company’s growth, Malek has been with the agency for 11 years, rising from an Account Executive to the role of CEO two years ago, just before the pandemic began. Prior to her promotion, she created the agency’s social and influencer practices and led the strategy team. As CEO, her people-first values guide the agency’s team design, employee retention strategies, and successful partnerships across the Stagwell network in service of both her team and clients.  

“We’re ecstatic about the talent and energy Media Kitchen brings to the table,” said Malek. “Our complementary capabilities offer clients stronger teams, greater performance, and new opportunities.”

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

About Stagwell Media Network

Stagwell’s Media Network is a group of leading multichannel agencies home to more than 3,000 experts with an expansive global footprint across 40+ offices in 20 countries, managing close to $5 billion in media. Agencies include Assembly, MMI Agency, Goodstuff and Grason, creative consultancy GALE, B2B specialist Multiview, multi-lingual content agency Locaria, and travel and media experts Ink.

The network offers marketers a more dynamic partner for global B2B and B2C solutions spanning data, technology, media, and creativity aimed at accelerating business growth for brands worldwide.

About MMI

MMI Agency is a modern brand lab where performance meets possibility. Our mission is to inspire action in an intelligent world by partnering with engaged clients; deploying human-first strategy; developing compelling creative; and conceptualizing iterative media plans and insightful communications programs.  MMI is made up of 175 employees and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Find out more at www.mmiagency.com.

Originally released on

FEATURING

New York, NY, January 14, 2022 (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell announced today that Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, will attend the upcoming Sidoti Winter SmallCap Virtual Conference on Wednesday, January 19 and Thursday, January 20, 2022. Penn will give a management presentation on Thursday at 10:45 a.m. ET. To register and access the presentation, please visit this link.

Penn will also be available for 1:1 investor meetings. For more information, please reach out to ir@stagwellglobal.com.

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

Originally released on

CONTACT

Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Stagwell, the US-based marketing holding company, is making good on its recent pledge to grow in Asia-Pacific through its global affiliate programme with a new partnership deal reached with Southeast Asian online news publisher Coconuts Media. Under the affiliate partnership deal, there is no immediate monetary investment. Rather, Stagwell and Coconuts will collaborate on scaled media placement and distribution across the Coconuts network in Southeast Asia. In addition, Stagwell’s agencies, such as 72andSunny, Forsman & Bodenfors, Allison and Partners, Assembly, Ink and others can team up with Coconuts’ in-house marketing agency, Grove, on joint pitches, marketing campaigns and branded content. Revenue sharing will be split on a project by project basis depending on what is involved.

Coconuts Media, founded by journalist entrepreneur Byron Perry in 2011, has grown steadily over the past decade, publishing online news and lifestyle content to millions across eight local markets (Bali, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore, Yangon) including documentaries and videos for major streaming services and networks like Discovery and Netflix. 

“We’re eager to collaborate with Byron and the Coconuts Media team to offer our leading mix of digital and media services to strengthen the APAC offering for our clients,” says Stagwell’s chairman and CEO, Mark Penn. “With the opening of Stagwell’s first-ever APAC headquarters in Singapore and our agencies’ continued success in the region, we’re investing heavily in Asia-Pacific as part of our global expansion this year.”

In November, Stagwell announced its SVP of executive talent, Randy Duax, would lead the APAC office as managing director starting this month to drive “rapid growth” and expansion. The Coconuts partnership is among the first of these regional efforts from its new regional base. Duax tells Campaign Asia-Pacific the two sides were mutually attracted, with Coconuts already having been on his radar for many years before connecting through the affiliate programme. 

“We’re super excited about Coconuts,” Duax says. “For us, they’re in a lot of different markets, they’re deep into social commerce, they’ve got first-party data. It fills in a lot of gaps that some clients have been looking for in this part of the world. And they’re very collaborative, which is something we look for.” 

While it’s less common for news-media publishers to join hands with a single advertising holding company, the deal should allow Coconuts to tap into Stagwell’s media services and research resources and give the company access to a global client base it may not have had before. The latter could be particularly important as Grove, Coconuts’ in-house creative studio for brands, becomes an increasingly important focus for the company.  

“With our publishing roots as a foundation, we are growing our creative and media-buying services and the business of serving clients as a modern creative agency,” says Perry, the company’s CEO. “Partnering with a challenger marketing network like Stagwell makes total sense as we work with larger, more complex global clients.”

Affiliate versus acquisition

What is significant about these affiliate deals is that they’re designed to be the first step on the road to a mutual acquisition agreement. This is something Stagwell made very clear when first announcing its affiliate programme a year ago. 

“It’s a way to soft introduce [Coconuts] to the holding company,” Duax explains. “We’re not taking ownership, we’re not saying you have to move into this office location. For an entrepreneur, if you want to retain control, that’s the appeal.”

Since it launched a year ago, Stagwell has signed up nearly 50 affiliates, including others in APAC such as Metric Design Studio in China, Enormous in India, This is Flow in Australia, and Hong Kong-based Beyond Media Global. 

Making the distinction of how these affiliate deals represent a very different approach from “top-down, holding-company acqusitions”, Duax explains the programme is designed for entrepreneurs looking for global opportunities to bring their own local opportunities and resources in return without the pressure of being forced to work for global clients and projects that they don’t want to.

Similar to the Worldwide Partners network of purely independent agencies, Stagwell’s affiliate collective is a network of successful entrepreneurs and businesses that want bigger opportunities. “You’ve got creative agencies in some of these markets who maybe have never had a media or research component,” Daux explains. “Maybe they have a client that just needs to reach into one specific market and they don’t have that connection. But they don’t [yet] want to sell to a bigger holding company. So for us it’s an opportunity to see if the partnership works out and if they can execute some of the bigger pieces of business we could bring.“  

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FEATURING

NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) today announced the next step in its expansion into Asia-Pacific via an affiliate partnership with Coconuts Media, the leading alternative online publisher reaching an audience of millions across Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, and Yangon. The partnership meaningfully expands Stagwell’s media investment in the region and adds a key partner with scaled content, production, and distribution capabilities to support global clients.

Via the partnership, Stagwell and Coconuts will collaborate to offer clients a competitive mix of traditional and digital media services, advice on region-specific consumer trends including the high growth in social commerce sales in APAC, and scaled media placement and distribution opportunities informed by first-party data across the Coconuts Media network. Additionally, Stagwell’s agencies in the region – including Assembly, Allison+Partners, 72andSunny, Forsman & Bodenfors, Ink, and more — will partner with Coconuts’ in-house marketing agency, Grove, in collaborative pitches and marketing campaigns. 

Coconuts Media’s publications include Coconuts, serving fresh and juicy news from eight cities in Asia; BK Magazine, Bangkok’s leading source for the best places to eat and hang out; and Soimilk, a daily dose of lifestyle news for Thailand’s digital-savvy youth. Grove, Coconuts Media’s in-house creative studio, ideates and manages campaigns for brands, while Coconuts TV produces documentary and unscripted programs for the likes of Netflix, Discovery, and MTV. 

“With the opening of Stagwell’s first-ever APAC headquarters in Singapore and our agencies’ continued success in the region, we’re investing heavily in Asia-Pacific as part of our global expansion this year,” said Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, Stagwell. “We’re eager to collaborate with Byron and the Coconuts Media team to offer our leading mix of digital and media services to strengthen the APAC offering for our clients.”

“With our publishing roots as a foundation, we are growing our creative and media buying services and the business of serving clients as a modern creative agency,” said Coconuts Media Founder and CEO Byron Perry. “Partnering with a challenger marketing network like Stagwell makes total sense as we work with larger, more complex global clients.”

The affiliate partnership with Coconuts Media is the latest step in Stagwell’s ambitious global expansion strategy, which has seen the Company add over 40 affiliates in locations across MENA, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. In January 2022, Stagwell also launched a corporate headquarters in Singapore to accelerate business development opportunities across APAC and support regional client partners, led by Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Randy Duax.

“Coconuts is changing the game when it comes to scaled content and premium media partnerships across APAC,” added Duax. “With the growth of their in-house creative agency and recent media acquisitions, they are a powerful partner as Stagwell rolls up its sleeves to help brands transform their marketing in the region.”

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

About Coconuts Media

Coconuts Media is Asia’s leading alternative media company.

Our mission is to inform and entertain our audience by telling true stories that matter across our portfolio of publications:

• Coconuts, fresh and juicy news on what’s happening Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, Yangon, and beyond
• BK Magazine, Bangkok’s leading source for the best places to eat and hang out
• Soimilk, a daily dose of lifestyle news for Thailand’s digital-savvy youth

Coconuts TV, our video brand, produces documentary programs on weird and wondrous stories from Asia for broadcast TV and streaming platforms. Grove, our in-house brand studio, ideates and manages creative campaigns for leading international brands that run on Coconuts brands and beyond.

Each month we reach an audience of millions across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong through digital, print, audio, and video.

We are passionate about journalism, the media industry, and telling the untold stories of our region. Learn more at www.coconuts.co

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Beth Sidhu

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By

Stagwell Insights

CES 2022 is in the rearview mirror. The technologies that debuted this year will bring accelerated innovation and transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands, and experience culture for years to come.

This year, Stagwell hosted a series of virtual floor tours featuring expert commentary on the trends we expect will transform marketing in 2022 and the implications for marketers. Below, we share our top four takeaways: 

More Screens, in More Places, More Often (Doing Different Things):  

• The trend: Television is evolving from a purely entertainment-focused device to a multi-faceted video display, enabling a sprawling universe of entertainment, lifestyle, home décor, news & information, and communication possibilities supported by the assistance of your favorite AI and voice-enabled tech.  
• The implications: More screens, in more places, more often means more media placement channels for brands, greatly expanding the array of consumer distribution touchpoints available. The way content is displayed isn’t the only thing changing; the nature of content itself will adapt to streaming-era behaviors that can more seamlessly connect content to commerce-driving actions via things like QR codes. Perhaps unexpectedly, the TV console in 2022 may find new life as a portal for discovery, addressable content marketing, and a rich source of first-party data.  

The Creator Economy is Here – For Everyone:  

• The trend: Tools for video creators continue to evolve, giving both the quality and bells and whistles of strong video content that were once reserved for professionals. At the same time, brands are experimenting with ways to give consumers creative control over branded products and services, seen in products like the L’Oreal Colorsonic which allows consumers to make their own custom lipstick.   
• The implications: 2022 will be the year technology and brands converge to empower everyone to be a creator of products, not just content. For brands with an imperative to scale compelling across increasingly niche consumer segments, marketing activations that empower the average consumers to use brand assets, products, or other associated content will be a powerful tool for awareness and top-of-funnel marketing.  

Problem-Solving Tech: 

• The trend: Technology is shifting to focus on the key economic and social challenges that were illuminated by the pandemic, such as food sustainability and labor and supply chain shortages. We saw a heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence and robotics as a tool for tackling these complex challenges of human scale, exemplified in products like John Deere’s fully autonomous tractor or the tradeshow-wide trend towards Electric Vehicles. 
• The implications: Brands will have new opportunities to scale the best practices enabled by problem-solving tech, which can unlock exciting new business models, product offerings, and service capabilities. At the same time, renewed corporate interest in the environmental and social footprints of businesses will add pressure for CMOs to ensure marketing communications and operations address their businesses’ impact. 

Scaling In-House Marketing:  

• The trend: The tech on display in the C Space for marketers underscores the need for a toolbox of scalable, DIY-marketing tools for in-house teams, who are increasingly present at major brands. At CES this year, Stagwell showcased the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, our suite of solutions supporting business transformation for in-house marketers, arrayed across real-time business intelligence, AI-powered comms tech, AR for events, and end-to-end influencer marketing management.
• The implications: With over 77% of organizations now having some form of in-house agency, expect investment in tools & services to support in-house marketing creation and execution to continue. Specifically, brands will be on the hunt for solutions that enable them to unify first-party data, create content at scale, and drive efficiency through their operations via automation.    

—

To dive deeper into the technology on display at CES 2022, stream a recording of Stagwell’s Virtual Floor Tours here, and reach out to beth.sidhu@stagwellglobal.com if you have questions.   

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Beth Sidhu

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Fully aligns leadership team with Stagwell’s digital growth strategy and supports future of agency as part of the network

New York, New York. January 6, 2022 – Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) announced today it has acquired the remaining 49% of Instrument, a leading digital brand and experience innovation company. Founded in Portland, Oregon, Instrument is one of Stagwell’s fastest growing agencies and employs over 400 people working on clients including Nike, Google, Salesforce and Epic Games.  Stagwell’s predecessor company, MDC Partners, had acquired 51% of Instrument in 2018.

“Instrument is all in with Stagwell,” said Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn. “Instrument is a first-rate digital company, having grown over 30% annually in each of the past two years. The entire leadership team has done an excellent job of growing their business while developing a culture of innovation, inclusion and outstanding client service.  We are pleased to welcome Instrument into the network fully and to have Justin, JD and their team onboard for the next phase of the company’s growth and development.”

“We believe in Instrument’s future with Stagwell and are pleased to take the final step into the network,” said Instrument CEO Justin Lewis. “We are looking forward to being a full part of Stagwell and the Constellation and to the growth and development opportunities this investment will provide for our team.”

Stagwell’s additional investment in Instrument fully aligns Stagwell with one of its fastest-growing businesses, provides for easier-to-scale digital operations and creates greater certainty for investors through full-ownership. The deal includes a fixed payment amount spread across a three-year term, split between cash and stock in STGW. This mutually beneficial structure provides Instrument’s management with appropriate incentives for their efforts and creates significant shareholder value. 

The completion of the current transaction brings to a close the uncertainty associated with uncapped earn-outs for all prior investments and greatly improves management of leverage and investment returns. With this deal, all previous uncapped earn-out deals have now been restructured. Stronger than expected free cash flow from Stagwell’s consolidated operations combined with the cash/equity payment structure enabled Stagwell to move forward with the completion of this acquisition at this time while further deleveraging the company’s balance sheet.

“We have moved to expand our portfolio of high growth digital assets, increase free cash flows, effectively manage leverage and end uncapped earn-out structures,” said Stagwell Chief Financial Officer Frank Lanuto.

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About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.