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Beth Sidhu

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The co-founders of Goodstuff Communications have sold their independent media agency to Stagwell, the US-listed “challenger” holding company.

Andrew Stephens and Ben Hayes, who set up Goodstuff in London in 2004, told Campaign the deal would enable them to add digital, data and technology capabilities and grow the agency’s business in the UK, as part of their strategic ambition to take their company from “Good to Great”.

Goodstuff – the UK’s second-biggest independent media agency and the 14th largest overall, with an estimated £208m in annual billings in 2020, according to Campaign’s School Reports – will retain its brand.

Stephens and Hayes have also committed to the company for five years as part of their earn-out.

The deal was agreed just days before Christmas. Financial terms were not disclosed but Goodstuff is likely to have sold for more than £30m on the basis that it reported profit before exceptional items, known as Ebitda, of £3.4m in the year before the pandemic, and typically an agency will sell for about 10 times annual profits.

Companies House filings show Stephens and Hayes controlled all the shares of Goodstuff Holdings but it is thought their combined stake ended up being closer to 75%, because eight other senior executives had share options that vest following the sale.

The eight partners are Simeon Adams, Bobby Din, Sam Drake, Paul Gayfer, Laura Moorcraft, Megan Stuart, Genevieve Tompkins and Simon Wilden.

Goodstuff employs about 130 people and has created a deal bonus pot to reward other staff with proceeds from the sale.

The agency will become part of Stagwell Media Network, the media arm, which has 3,000 staff and claims to manage close to $5bn (£3.7bn) in annual spend globally.

Mark Penn, a former Microsoft and WPP executive, founded Stagwell in 2015. It has since acquired dozens of agencies, including MDC Partners, the owner of creative shops 72andSunny and Anomaly and media agency Assembly. Stagwell has about 10,000 employees around the world.

Stephens and Hayes said: “Goodstuff’s unswerving mission is to be the world’s most inventive media agency, and to help accelerate our next phase, we wanted to join a network that could bring world-class capabilities in data, technology, and digital.

“In Stagwell, we’ve not only found these services, but also a partner that perfectly aligns with our culture of entrepreneurialism, invention, and progress. We’ve been hugely impressed by Stagwell’s challenger status and ambitions, their senior leadership team, and the breadth of world-class modern marketing brands in the group.”

Penn, who is chairman and chief executive of Stagwell, said: “We welcome Goodstuff as a critical part of our strategy to create a truly global and competitive media operation.

“When we created Stagwell Media Network [in September 2021], we set out to build a collaborative and coherent network of global media agencies that are on the leading edge of media, data, and technology. The addition of Goodstuff, with their unrivalled track record of innovation, continues to deliver on our vision of transforming marketing.”

It is understood that Goodstuff and Assembly worked together on pitching for at least one – unnamed – client last year, which encouraged both sides to consider an M&A deal.

James Townsend, global chief executive of Stagwell Media Network, said: “What attracted us to the agency were their world-class leadership and unwavering focus on people, culture, and the work.

“After a series of successful collaborations with Assembly in the UK, we see the potential for our network to build something truly differentiated, progressive, and exciting in the marketplace.”

Sale reflects Goodstuff’s need for digital, data and tech capabilities

Stephens, who is 50, and Hayes, 54, met in their twenties at Saatchi & Saatchi, before moving to Manning Gottlieb OMD, where they incubated Goodstuff – initially as a planning agency, before expanding into buying in 2011.

Omnicom, the parent company of Manning Gottlieb OMD, retained a minority stake until 2017, when Stephens and Hayes took 100% control.

The agency has won a reputation for its creative and collaborative approach, attracting clients such as Cazoo, Ovo, On the Beach and Yorkshire Tea, winning Grands Prix at both the Media Week Awards and Campaign Media Awards in 2019 and 2020, and staging the annual Goodstuff Media Showcase, where media owners are invited to pitch ideas to creative agencies.

The founding partners have prided themselves on Goodstuff’s independent ownership, but there was speculation that they were considering a sale in autumn 2019 and the rumours resurfaced in the same period of 2021.

Their decision to sell now appears to be significant as clients increasingly look for one agency partner that can offer full-funnel, omnichannel planning and buying across both digital and traditional media.

Goodstuff is known for its expertise in communications planning and broadcast TV, whereas Stagwell’s media capabilities are chiefly in digital and performance marketing. Stagwell acquired specialists such as Forward3D and PMX and subsequently merged them with Assembly, a traditional media agency.

Stephens and Hayes explained the rationale for the sale in a company blog post, describing it as “a recognition that whilst we’re one of the UK’s leading media agencies now, the digital, data and technology industry around us is changing at such pace that, if we’re to realise our stated mission [to move from ‘Good to Great’], we must similarly change, and evolve our offering”.

Goodstuff initially talked to several “digital specialists” about the idea of an “informal” partnership, before moving to discussions about a sale, according to the blogpost.

Stephens added they were certain that they did not want to sell to one of the established agency giants or a private equity investor because that would not help Goodstuff to achieve its ambitions.

Headroom for growth in the UK 

Goodstuff Communications is Stagwell’s first acquisition since the merger of MDC Partners completed in August 2021 through a reverse takeover. The company is listed on the New York stock market.

Penn has talked about building Stagwell into “a digital-first alternative to traditional agency holding companies”. It is one of several “challenger” groups – including S4 Capital, You & Mr Jones and Dept – to have emerged in recent years.

He told investors at Stagwell’s Q3 results that “making sure that we have on[line] and offline media on a global basis” and winning “global contracts” were among his priorities.

Acquiring Goodstuff allows Stagwell to bring together offline and online media in Europe in the same way that it has already done in the US, Townsend told Campaign, stressing the growing need to combine brand building and performance marketing in a single offer that he called “brand performance”.

Stagwell Media Network will have nearly 500 staff in Europe. Assembly employs about 350 people, plus 130 are joining from Goodstuff.

While Goodstuff is expected to support Stagwell Media Network on work across Europe, Stephens and Hayes said their primary focus remains the UK.

There is headroom for growth as they look to compete with bigger rivals, they said, citing Publicis Groupe’s Zenith, WPP’s Essence and Manning Gottlieb OMD as examples of some of the UK’s top 10 media agencies that they rate.

Goodstuff was advised by corporate advisory firm Clarity, law firm Osborne Clarke and accountants Moore Kingston Smith.

Clarity previously worked on Adam & Eve’s sale to Omnicom’s DDB and M&C Saatchi’s sale of Walker Media to Publicis Groupe. Walker Media had a similar profile to Goodstuff and sold at a multiple of 9.2 times annual profits.

Stephens and Hayes stressed in their blog post that “all the good bits of Goodstuff remain unchanged” following the sale.

The post said: “Andrew, Ben and the partners are committed for the long term… our brand, our values, our culture and our relentless focus on inventive work will not shift an inch but as of today, we also have access to world-class digital and data talent, services and technology to bring omnichannel brilliance to the most progressive client brands.”

As part of the sale process, Goodstuff has exited its minority interests in Love Sugar Science and Sixteen By Nine, two agencies that it supported in a start-up initiative, called Startstuff, in 2019.

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Mark Penn

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It’s 2022 and there are still no driverless cars. Don’t be discouraged — the hype was always greater than what technology could master. As you bring new products to market, consider this: what is the right “digital” layer to your customer experience and marketing? Some companies overshoot when answering this, envisioning beyond the current limitations of technology. Others fall short and lack a vision for how to refine their digital layers for transformation.

As former Chief Strategy Officer for Microsoft and now CEO of Stagwell, I have sifted through thousands of digital layer ideas. I once proposed opening an online bank only to be told those transactions were commodities. Just try to get into fintech now, one of the hottest areas of emerging tech innovation.  

Physical money, physical meetings, and yes even physicals at the doctor’s office are being replaced with direct digital experiences that take simple technologies and combine them with great logistical operations to generate winning digital layers. Look at what has happened in the last few years to ordering groceries. Grocery services adapted the physical shopping experience into an intuitive digital process of food and recipe selection that powers enviable conversion.

To pioneer digital transformation at your brand, you don’t need to engineer the next iPhone. But you must understand and master the potential new digital layers of your product or service to find ways to enhance them. Put simply, the trick to building a successful digital layer is strategically adapting a physical process into a digital one to add convenience and value to the user journey.

Hailing a cab is an everyday physical process that has been transformed into a digital exercise. Before, consumers braved an awkward street-side system that used to generate its fair number of street brawls. Uber saw the unlimited potential in bringing the act of cab hailing and driver management into the digital layer. It wasn’t a breakthrough of engineering so much as a breakthrough in adding the benefits of already-developed technologies to the service experience.

Sometimes people overshoot their potential digital layer and invest in expensive digital layers that only add confusion for consumers. Movie theaters, for example, learned the hard way that the impressive customization options available on those complex, multi-brand touch-screen soda machines only goes so far. Lemon lime cherry diet cola, anyone? No – your consumer wants a Coke.

Real estate maps that let people sort nearby options and view video tours are an extremely helpful tool for people navigating the rental and relocation process, but most people are still going to need to see a tour of the apartment to close the sale. The digital layer in real estate enhances the discovery process but doesn’t replace the entire user journey. This is an important limitation: while most things can be made digital, not everything can be replaced by a digital layer. 

And if the product itself lacks a digital layer, the marketing around it is where to look for your layer. How can digital help you better display product, provide information, and make the shopper experience convenient and enjoyable? Brands like Amazon build relatively straight-forward digital marketing templates for UX, so there are still many possibilities remaining for making product presentation more engaging with 3D and AR layers.

Entering 2022, now is the time to break down every step of your current product and marketing process and ask – is this better accomplished in the real world or in the metaverse? Then you can more easily identify the outer bounds of your potential digital layer.

Imagine big, then implement layer by layer. Some ideas will be duds and some will be game changers. Most of what we are able to do with digital has in theory already been invented in the last decade, but much of what we can do in practice with this technology has yet to be accomplished. Finding the right digital layer for your product or service is at the core of how you can you transform your business in today’s digital economy.

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Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Stagwell Chief Brand and Communications Officer Beth Sidhu visits the Stagwell Marketing Cloud at CES 2022 and highlights key priorities for tech investment for in-house marketers.  

There’s a reason the marketing calendar begins each year with CES: there is no better place to track the technologies that will transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands and experience culture. Stagwell is on the ground in Las Vegas and virtually at CES this week sharing ARound, a location-based AR platform, which is the latest addition to our suite of tools for in-house marketers: the Stagwell Marketing Cloud.

Why build an in-house marketing cloud? CMOs need a trusted toolbox of solutions to help support business transformation as, per Forrester, 77 percent of global organizations now have some form of in-house agency. We’ve built the Stagwell Marketing Cloud to support in-house teams in four ways:

Powering real-time business intelligence

Empower and manage secondary brand ambassadors

Supercharging communications with predictive AI

Forge new mediums to connect with consumers
 

Powering Real-Time Business Intelligence 

Real-time business intelligence tools like the Harris Brand Platform can provide in-house teams with daily insights on brand perception, equity, sales funnels and the impact of marketing campaigns on consumer behavior and perceptions. In an era where errant tweets and unfortunate headlines can cause your brand’s stock to soar or sink, there are few better ways to fireproof your operations than regular pulses of brand perception.

Supercharging communications with predictive A.I.

Marketing communications evolve but the mission remains the same: get the right message to the right person at the right time. When harnessed strategically, earned media can help a team offset (or if they’re lucky, supplant) the need for a hefty paid investment.

PRophet is a tool that enables in-house marketers and PR professionals to predict media interest, sentiment and spread of a press story prior to pitching. The product is powered by the latest developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning and bolstered by expanding partner databases such as with Podchaser to give teams the predictive intelligence they need to tie amplify their great creative ideas with earned media coverage. As A.I. gets more sophisticated, tools like PRophet can free-up PR pros to focus their creativity on brand-building efforts and growing brand mandates like ESG, DEI, and engaging new stakeholders.

Empowering Brand-Safe Ambassadors.

In a platform dominated society, influence is currency. With the rise of social commerce, live streaming, and yes even the metaverse, it’s more important than ever for brands to have strategies for authentically activating influencers that dominate their respective categories. At the same time, marketers need assurances that the influencers they partner with are brand-safe and services rendered are compliant with agreed-upon contracts.

Koalifyed is an end-to-end influencer marketing application that brings helps brands manage complex influencer programs. Underpinned by a bot-detection solution, SNIFF (which stands for social network influencer friend or foe), Koalifyed is a great tool for in-house marketers handling complex influencer campaigns.

Pushing the New Frontiers of the Consumer Experience

Without a doubt, 2022 will bring all the tools of mixed reality and the metaverse into marketing efforts. Just as brands are looking into the virtual world, consumers will be clamoring to return to the physical world, pending the control of the Omicron variant. In-house shops can use location-based AR as an easy, cost-effective investment into developing more engaging digital layers to live events.

ARound is an augmented reality creation tool for live events that empowers brand to bring audiences together at scale so they can engage, interact, and socialize in a completely new and meaningful way. By giving partners the tech and a content interface to experiment with the medium, ARound empowers in-house teams to invest now in the budding metaverse to enhance the journey for consumers.

Where to From Here? 

In-house marketers need the best tools available and we’re excited to that support in-house marketing transformation for modern businesses. See ARound, our AR product, on the floor this week at CES, peruse our digital CES booth featuring more products from the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, and reach out to hello@stagwellglobal.com. 

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FEATURING

Goodstuff joins the newest global marketing services company to accelerate and scale growth.

New York, NY & London, UK – January 4, 2022 (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell, the challenger network built to transform marketing, today announced the acquisition of Goodstuff, the 130-strong, full-service media planning and buying agency based in London. 

The Goodstuff team will join the Stagwell Media Network, a group of leading multichannel agencies home to more than 3,000 experts with an expansive global footprint across 20 countries and 40 offices, managing close to $5 billion in media. The network offers an alternative to the status quo provided by today’s legacy holding companies. As a more dynamic B2C and B2B partner, with solutions spanning media, data, technology, and content, Stagwell Media Network is growing in double digits during a period of sustained transformation and expansion. 

Goodstuff brings complementary and additive client services, including communications strategy, full-funnel media delivery, and inventive solutions for premier clients, including Ovo, AA, On The Beach, Yorkshire Tea, Cazoo, and Hello Fresh. As a first-class brand and highly respected business in a key global market, Goodstuff will further extend the media network’s innovation, scale, and creative thinking.

“We welcome Goodstuff as a critical part of our strategy to create a truly global and competitive media operation. When we created Stagwell Media Network, we set out to build a collaborative and coherent network of global media agencies that are on the leading edge of media, data, and technology,” Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn said. “The addition of Goodstuff with their unrivaled track record of innovation continues to deliver on our vision of transforming marketing.”

“I am delighted to welcome co-founders Andrew Stephens and Ben Hayes and the entire Goodstuff team into the network. What attracted us to the agency were their world-class leadership and unwavering focus on people, culture, and the work,” said James Townsend, Global CEO of both Stagwell Media Network and the network’s flagship media agency, Assembly. “After a series of successful collaborations with Assembly in the UK, we see the potential for our network to build something truly differentiated, progressive, and exciting in the marketplace.”

“Goodstuff’s unswerving mission is to be the world’s most inventive media agency, and to help accelerate our next phase, we wanted to join a network that could bring world-class capabilities in data, technology, and digital. In Stagwell, we’ve not only found these services, but also a partner that perfectly aligns with our culture of entrepreneurialism, invention, and progress,” said Stephens and Hayes. “We’ve been hugely impressed by Stagwell’s challenger status and ambitions, their senior leadership team, and the breadth of world-class modern marketing brands in the group.”

This is the first full acquisition since the combination of Stagwell and MDC partners in August 2021. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

###

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, Media Kitchen, 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 Goodstuff

Goodstuff is the UK’s leading media planning and buying agency, the highest rated independent agency by Campaign School Reports, and holds both the 2019 & 2020 Grands Prix for both Media Week & Campaign Media Awards.

Established in 2004 as a pure communications and creative media agency, incubated by Virgin, the agency had seven successful years before scaling the business through the addition of media buying.

The agency is one of the UK’s fastest growing, has been listed in The Sunday Times’ ‘Top 100 Small Companies to Work For’ and Campaign’s ‘Best Places to Work’ and is host of the annual Goodstuff Media Showcase, an event that brings together the creative and media owner communities. Find out more at Goodstuff.co.uk.

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Stagwell agencies 72andSunny, Anomaly, Doner, Forsman & Bodenfors, Assembly, and newly-launched Stagwell Media Network received “best of the best” honors for innovative, effective and creative work in global tally, including Most Awarded Campaigns, Top Brands for Creative and Top Networks for Creative

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell, the challenger company transforming marketing, today announced that the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) has recognized five agency partners and the Stagwell Media Network as leaders in creative and effective campaigns and media strategies that drive sustained success on behalf of global brands. WARC celebrates the world’s most awarded campaigns, networks and agencies, benchmarking the excellence of creatives around the globe. The work honored by WARC in the Creative 100 and Effective 100 awards represents compelling, innovative consumer campaigns and experiences that are defining the next generation of marketing.

The WARC Creative 100 is determined by tallying recognitions at global and regional creative awards shows, including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Clio Awards, and London International Awards (LIA). Similarly, the WARC Effective 100 takes into consideration recognitions from Effies, IPA Effectiveness Awards, Jay Chiat Awards, and others.

Stagwell agencies 72andSunny, Anomaly, Assembly, Doner, and Forsman & Bodenfors all received recognitions on this year’s rankings, as well as Stagwell’s newly-launched Stagwell Media Network. Full highlights from this year’s WARC Creative 100 include:

• Forsman & Bodenfors: Ranked #3 in Top 30 Campaigns (Creative 100) with Volvo E.V.A. Initiative
• Forsman & Bodenfors’ cutting-edge campaign, “Equal Vehicles for All Initiative” (E.V.A.) for Volvo, was celebrated as a Top 30 Campaign (Creative 100). The E.V.A. Initiative shared 40 years of research via an integrated campaign to raise awareness of gender inequities in crash tests. The global campaign drove unmatched engagement, with over 290 million social media impressions and led to over 40,000 downloads of its database. The E.V.A. Initiative has also received awards from the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity, CLIO, Eurobest, and SABRE.
• Stagwell Media Network: Ranked #45 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). Stagwell Media Network – launched in August 2021 – combines leading omnichannel expertise for global B2B and B2C solutions from several leading media agencies, including Assembly (formerly Assembly and ForwardPMX), MMI Agency, Media Kitchen, and Grason, creative consultancy GALE, B2B specialist Multiview, multilingual content agency Locaria and travel and media experts Ink.
• Anomaly: Ranked #13 in Top 50 Creative Agency (Effective 100) and #28 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 
• Assembly: Ranked #33 in the Top 50 Media Agencies list (Effective 100). 
• 72andSunny: Ranked #29 in Top 30 Campaigns with Swipe Night, #29 in Creative Networks (Creative 100), #31 in Top Network in the Media (Media 100), and #48 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 
• 72andSunny’s extraordinary work for Tinder’s Swipe Night was recognized in Most Awarded Campaigns (Creative 100). Swipe Night, the network’s most awarded creative client work for 2021, has been widely celebrated as a standout of digital content and entertainment, transforming the way consumers date. The campaign has also been recognized at the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity, Clio, Effies and the Daytime Emmy Awards, among others.  
• Doner: Ranked #46 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 

“Our agencies’ recognitions from WARC demonstrate Stagwell’s unlimited potential to drive results and recognition for the world’s leading brands,” said Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, Stagwell Global. “WARC’s decision to honor Stagwell Media Network – one of our first and largest initiatives as the newly combined Stagwell Inc.– highlights the power of our integrated approach to client solutions, which is driven by cutting edge creative and digital solutions.”

For more information on Stagwell Global and our award-winning work, please visit 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.

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Beth Sidhu

Global network appoints Jon Schaaf, Shannon Pruitt, and Rick Acampora to deliver an evolved future-facing strategy that drives innovation, scale, efficiencies, and differentiation across clients and partners.

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell Media Network, part of Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) Inc, today announced expanded leadership to further evolve the agency’s investment profile, with a focus on partnerships, innovation, investment models, and accountability to help clients navigate changes in the media landscape and fuel market-leading growth. 

Noted appointments include:

• Jon Schaaf, Global Chief Investment Officer: With over 20+ years of experience at major holding companies (including Omnicom, Publicis, and GroupM), Jon has expertly led the development of omnichannel investment strategies for some of the world’s largest advertisers, as well as created cutting edge partnerships with the global publisher community. Jon will lead the creation and management of the investment group, overseeing strategy and activation across Stagwell Media Network clients globally.
• Shannon Pruitt, Global Chief Content Officer: Shannon is a 20+ year industry leader with deep agency, publisher, and brand-side experience. Having been in former roles at Dentsu’s The Story Lab, Carat, Warner Brothers, as well as CMO of The Honest Company, she has helped some of the world’s leading companies connect with consumers in ever-and-rapidly changing economic, cultural, and media environments. In this new role, Shannon is responsible for developing innovative content, media, and publisher relationships that deliver integrated experiences across the network for Stagwell Media Network clients to drive measurable value and business outcomes.
• Rick Acampora, Global Chief Client Officer: With experience across a plethora of agencies and brands, including GroupM, MEC/Wavemaker, UM, and Publicis, Rick has built, maintained, and applied the practice of client leadership for some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Rick led the product unification and transformation for the merger of MEC and Maxus to form Wavemaker and ensured expansion for both their clients and the agency resulting in the two most significant growth years in MEC/Wavemaker’s history. At Stagwell Media Network, Rick will collaborate across the client and agency teams to create indispensable partnerships that drive innovation and results while also enabling our people to continuously progress as leaders.

“This team has invaluable experience in creatively developing and activating forward-thinking strategies and partnerships that deliver meaningful growth for businesses,” said James Townsend, Global CEO of Stagwell Media Network. “Together, and with the expansive Stagwell community, they will collaborate with publishers and media partners to construct opportunities that our agencies can uniquely bring to our clients.” 

Stagwell Media Network is home to more than 2,500 experts with an expansive global footprint across 40 offices in 20 countries, managing close to $5 billion in media. The network creates an exciting environment for a new era of marketing talent, bringing together world-class omnichannel media, analytics, technology, and consulting expertise.

“The formation of the Stagwell Media Network was an intentional and proactive approach to ensuring we enable collaboration that helps deliver on our vision of being the challenger brand offering an alternative to the status quo,” said Stagwell’s president Jay Leveton. “Our continued investment in this team and community underscores the importance of how we intend to create new opportunities for our clients, partners, and the market.”

Additional leadership and organizational details will be announced in the coming weeks. These investments will drive increased collaboration across the entire media and creative portfolio in Stagwell. 

About Stagwell Media Network

Stagwell Media Network is a group of leading multichannel agencies including Assembly, MMI Agency, Media Kitchen, and Grason, creative consultancy GALE, B2B specialist Multiview, transcreation 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 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.

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FEATURING

NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell Inc., the challenger network built to transform marketing, today announced several senior appointments that will help position the Company for accelerated global growth and talent acquisition as it enters 2022.

Key Appointments Include:

• Robyn Freye has been named SVP, Chief Growth Officer, North America to lead strategic growth initiatives for the North America market and build a robust client growth strategy across network. At Stagwell, Freye has been instrumental in attracting key client engagements to the global roster, including Google, Uber and Expedia. Freye held prior roles at The Burnett Collective, where she served as a VP focused on agency search and review, global consolidation, and operational enhancement for multinational brands; and at R/GA as Vice President and Managing Director, overseeing growth marketing efforts and key multinational accounts for multiple U.S. offices.
• Alexis Williams has been named SVP, Chief Brand Officer, North America and will lead brand marketing efforts collaborating with Stagwell’s global and growth teams. Williams was instrumental in the development of Stagwell Inc.’s brand amid the combination of MDC Partners Inc. and Stagwell Marketing Group LLC. and serves as an advisor to key network communications clients.  Prior to her tenure at Stagwell, Williams held several executive roles at Politico overseeing marketing communications and the erection of Politico’s strategic events division, and served as the Global Head of Women Rule, a membership program that convenes women in positions of leadership quarterly for idea-sharing, networking, and more.
• Nate Napier has been named SVP, Global Solutions, responsible for building integrated teams and working models that harness the collective marketing expertise of Stagwell’s portfolio agencies in service of connected, scalable solutions for global clients.  During his tenure at Stagwell, Napier has been key to the creation of a central client relationship management team that serves key global accounts. Prior to joining Stagwell, Napier spent his career on the client-side leading integrated brand building and implementing modern agile marketing strategies for several Fortune 100 organizations including Intuit and Procter & Gamble.
• Amy Mayurnik has been tapped for the role of SVP, Global Recruitment, where she will lead and expand the network’s central recruitment team in support of the growth underway across Stagwell’s portfolio of companies. One of Stagwell’s longest-serving employees with over a decade of experience in the network, Mayurnik has been instrumental in developing a global talent pipeline of over 250,000 leading creative, digital and technology-focused experts. Joining Mayurnik on the team – and doubling the size of Stagwell’s central recruitment arm — are Shane McEwen, Mariana Bustamante, and Doris Jones, with additional hires planned throughout 2022. Prior to Stagwell, Mayurnik was employed at Deloitte.

“We have high hopes for Stagwell in 2022 and are making incredible progress in assembling the right team of collaborative leaders to bring our vision for transformative marketing to life,” said Chairman and CEO Mark Penn. “Each of these employees has demonstrated exceptional judgement, agility in the face of disruption, and a commitment to Stagwell’s collaborative approach to global services.”

In addition to hiring over 1,000 employees across its portfolio in recent months, Stagwell has made several key appointments since its launch in August 2021 to round out the Company’s roster of executive leadership. In addition to the aforementioned talent, Stagwell has hired Stephanie Howley as Chief People Officer; tapped former Harris Poll executive Merrill Raman to lead technology and IT across Stagwell as Chief Technology Officer; and promoted Randy Duax to the role of Managing Director, Asia-Pacific to further accommodate the network’s rapid global expansion.  

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.

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FEATURING

NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell announced today that management will attend the upcoming Wells Fargo 5^th Annual Virtual TMT Summit from November 30 – December 2, 2021. Chairman and CEO Mark Penn will present at the conference on Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 10:00 A.M. ET. To register and access the presentation, please visit this link.

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.

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Stagwell (STGW) Details Key Strategic Growth Targets at Investor Event, Increases Targeted Combined GAAP Revenue Goals for 2025 

Management announced increased annual organic revenue targets, expanded M&A commitments, and plans to bolster its capabilities across high-growth digital marketing services including cloud suite of digital SaaS and DaaS products 

New York, NY, November 9, 2021 (NASDAQ: STGW) – Stagwell announced several strategic growth targets at the company’s first in-person and virtual presentation for investors and analysts. Those include:

• Increased targeted combined GAAP revenue for 2025 to $3.4B versus $3B previously, based on:
  • Increased target of 7-9% annual organic revenue growth compared to 5% previously, leading to double-digit overall annual revenue growth. The increase is driven by 1) an increased mix of digital revenue targeted to grow at a blended 10-15% per year, 2) increased confidence in higher growth of conventional marketing driven by success in winning larger pitches, and 3) increased confidence in secular growth in advocacy.
  • Increased incremental revenue target from M&A and associated organic growth of acquisitions to $450M by 2025 versus prior target of $325M. (Increased levels of cash flow due to business outperformance are expected to be dedicated to acquisitions in synergistic geographies and capabilities, in addition to faster-growing digital areas.)
  • Stagwell Marketing Cloud announced to service in-house marketers with suite of digital SaaS and DaaS products is targeted to generate ~$75M in revenue by 2025.
• Proportion of New Revenue derived from digital services — including digital transformation, performance marketing & data, and online research — targeted to grow to 65% by 2025, up from 48% of pro forma revenue in Q3 2021.
• Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 25 to 50 basis points per year, driven by a combination of synergies and increased mix of higher-margin digital services, partially offset by normalization of travel & entertainment.

“Stagwell is demonstrating new levels of growth and profitability that go beyond simple pandemic recovery, bolstered by our best-in-class digital services” said Mark Penn. “The combination has set us up to deliver record year-end growth and we are confident that doubling down on our aggressive investment in connected, integrated marketing solutions is the key to further sustained growth.”

These targets follow strong Q3 2021 performance from the world’s newest marketing services network, including 22.8% pro forma net organic revenue and 25.2% year over year pro forma net organic revenue. GAAP Revenue for the quarter was $466.6 million.

Stagwell last week revised its full year-end guidance, which had previously been revised higher in Q2. The company now expects to end the year with pro forma revenue of $2.15B-$2.18B and is raising its Adjusted EBITDA expectations for a second time to $370M-$380M from $325-$340 at the beginning of the year.*

A replay of Stagwell’s November 8, 2021 Investor Day, including copies of all management presentation materials, is available at www.stagwellglobal.com/investors/

*The Company has excluded a quantitative reconciliation with respect to the Company’s 2021 guidance under the “unreasonable efforts” exception in Item 10(e)(1)(i)(B) of Regulation S-K.

About Stagwell

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.

Forward-Looking Statements & Other Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Statements in this press release that are not historical facts, including without limitation the information under the heading “Financial Outlook” and statements about the Company’s beliefs and expectations, earnings (loss) guidance, recent business and economic trends, potential acquisitions, and estimates of amounts for redeemable noncontrolling interests and deferred acquisition consideration, constitute forward-looking statements. Words such as “estimates”, “expects”, “contemplates”, “will”, “anticipates”, “projects”, “plans”, “intends”, “believes”, “forecasts”, “may”, “should”, and variations of such words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates and projections, and are subject to change based on a number of factors, including those outlined in this section. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any of them in light of new information or future events, if any. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, but are not limited to, the following:

• risks associated with international, national and regional unfavorable economic conditions that could affect the Company or its clients, including as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic (“COVID-19”);
• the effects of the outbreak of COVID-19, including the measures to reduce its spread, and the impact on the economy and demand for our services, which may precipitate or exacerbate other risks and uncertainties;
• an inability to realize expected benefits of the combination of the Company’s business with the business of MDC (the “Business Combination” and, together with the related transactions, the “Transactions”);
• adverse tax consequences in connection with the Transactions for the Company, its operations and its shareholders, that may differ from the expectations of the Company, including that future changes in tax law, potential increases to corporate tax rates in the United States and disagreements with the tax authorities on the Company’s determination of value and computations of its attributes may result in increased tax costs;
• the occurrence of material Canadian federal income tax (including material “emigration tax”) as a result of the Transactions;
• the impact of uncertainty associated with the Transactions on the Company’s businesses;
• direct or indirect costs associated with the Transactions, which could be greater than expected;
• risks associated with severe effects of international, national and regional economic conditions;
• the Company’s ability to attract new clients and retain existing clients;
• reduction in client spending and changes in client advertising, marketing and corporate communications requirements;
• financial failure of the Company’s clients;
• the Company’s ability to retain and attract key employees;
• the Company’s ability to achieve the full amount of its stated cost saving initiatives;
• the Company’s implementation of strategic initiatives;
• the Company’s ability to remain in compliance with its debt agreements and the Company’s ability to finance its contingent payment obligations when due and payable, including but not limited to those relating to redeemable noncontrolling interests and deferred acquisition consideration;
• the successful completion and integration of acquisitions which complement and expand the Company’s business capabilities; and
• foreign currency fluctuations.

Investors should carefully consider these risk factors and the additional risk factors outlined in more detail under the caption “Risk Factors” in Exhibit 99.2 to our Current Report on Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on August 10, 2021, and accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov., and in the Company’s other SEC filings.

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FEATURING

New York, NY, November 5, 2021 — Stagwell Inc. (the “Company”) announced today the grant of equity inducement awards of Class A common stock to two new employees in connection with their joining the Company as agency executives. The Company granted 215,000 restricted shares to Marianne Malina, Global CEO of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and 150,000 restricted stock units to Toby Southgate, Global CEO of Forsman & Bodenfors. The grants are effective November 1, 2021, and will vest on the third anniversary of each executive’s start date, subject to continued employment. Vesting of 65,000 of the restricted shares granted to Ms. Malina is further subject to the achievement of performance conditions. The grants provide for accelerated vesting upon (i) termination of employment by the Company without Cause, with the number of shares pro-rated based on months of service, or (ii) death or disability. The Company granted these awards as a material inducement to employment in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4).   

For more information on Stagwell, please visit www.stagwellglobal.com

About Stagwell

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 30+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.