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FEATURING

NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) today announced that Stagwell Technology’s influencer management platform Koalifyed has launched a mobile app, available for download on the Apple App Store. The app is the latest from Koalifyed, an end-to-end campaign management solution that empowers social-first brands and agencies to reach real audiences faster and optimize campaign dollars to improve results. 

“We’re excited for this next evolution in Koalifyed’s technology and the added agility it will bring our brand and agency partners as they collaborate with talent in today’s influence-driven marketplace,” said Koalifyed Partner and Stagwell Technology’s Chief Technology Officer Charles Hu. “From macro influencers to nano influencers, we know that in today’s consumer-centric landscape, the endorsement of key creators can drive preference, positive word of mouth, and ultimately conversion.”

“Koalifyed’s app arrives at a crucial time for social-first brands seeking to tap into the multiplier-effect of modern culture,” added Stagwell Chief Brand Officer Beth Sidhu. “At Stagwell, we’re bullish on the value influencer marketing can add to an omnichannel strategy in today’s marketplace and are proud to see Koalifyed continue to evolve as an essential tool for digital clients.”

The technology — leveraged by clients such as P&G, Gilette, Old Spice, and Pantene — builds speed, efficiency, and trust into the most crucial parts of influencer campaign management, helping connect brands to their most engaged audiences, drive meaningful partnerships with dynamic, high-quality creators, and deliver maximum performance.

Koalifyed’s app enhances the platform’s features including best-in-class proprietary fraud detection which has been shown to identify up to 10 times more bots than other products; and blockchain technology for smart contracts to help keep brands compliant with increased FTC guidelines for influencer marketing.

“Brands need to reach people authentically —  and authentic audiences are precisely what Koalifyed specializes in,” added Christina Scala, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Koalifyed. “Our growing directory of diverse influencers can be a key tool for brands seeking to elevate a more representative cast of creators in their marketing.”

Koalifyed is part of Stagwell’s broader roster of digital SaaS products that solve for key gaps in the modern marketing services ecosystem. Powered by Stagwell’s impressive network of best-in-class engineering talent, numbering 2000+ globally, the Company’s product suite offers clients the best in connected technologies to drive marketing effectiveness. Koalifyed was developed by Stagwell Technologies in collaboration with leading consumer marketing agency MMI Agency.

In addition to Koalifyed, Stagwell’s solutions include products that predict the performance of communications using A.I. (PRophet), connect global talent for content delivery (LOCATE), measure and optimize brand reputation (Harris Brand Platform), and more.

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger holding company 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 24+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients.

For more information, visit www.stagwellglobal.com.

About Koalifyed

Koalifyed is now available to all brands and offers solutions for influencer marketing budgets of all sizes. Creators can also sign up to join the Koalifyed creator database to get discovered by brands via Koalifyed’s website. To learn more, sign up to be a part of Koalifyed’s creator database or request a demo, visit https://www.koalifyed.com/.

Originally released on

CONTACT

Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Mark Penn, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Stagwell Group, has been discretely building his alternative agency network for six years. ”I think it’s fair to say we snuck up on the marketplace. It’s been part of the strategy,” he says.

Last week, however, Penn broke cover and ended Stagwell’s time in ’stealth mode’ with a move intended, at least in part, to set off alarm bells at his agency rivals. Specifically, Penn showed up at Nasdaq on Times Square, ringing the stock exchange’s closing bell.

”It’s a bit of fun,” says Penn, speaking to The Drum on the morning of the bell-ringing ceremony. It comes shortly after the completion of Stagwell’s merger with MDC Partners, a deal that has been in the making since 2019. ”Everything’s come together now, so we’re capping it off with the bell-ringing. But of course, the work has just begun.”

With the merger finished – a process that has brought Stagwell’s headcount to almost 10,000 and dozens of respected agencies within its umbrella – the network is looking to compete with the holding companies on a level playing field.

Extra horsepower

The addition of creative shops such as 72andSunny and CPB adds ”a little creative horsepower” to Stagwell, alongside its research, media and strategy arms, he says.

”Our goal is to increasingly compete with them on their terms. Part of our strategy, of putting together creative and digital talent, is to be able to turn around and say [that] if you’ve been using those four majors, but you’ve been dissatisfied, they’re not digital and their creative isn’t immersive enough, that we can be a real alternative.”

”We aim to dislodge some of that $60bn that’s sitting over there in the majors, because they’re the people that most clients love to hate,” he continues. ”The marketplace is ripe for this kind of opportunity.”

The first half of 2021 saw a deluge of client activity and ad spend, and though Penn agrees with Publicis’s Arthur Sadoun on its ”exceptional” nature, he’s optimistic about market conditions.

”There are two aspects. One is more temporary – the renewal of marketing efforts that were halted during the pandemic. The other is more permanent, which is the shift toward increased digital transformation, increased online shopping and, as a consequence, increased online advertising. I estimate this is a three-to-five-year acceleration of those trends.

”We had Zoom and Peloton before, but we didn’t use them. A lot of these tools, such as InstaCart, were developed before the pandemic, and then they kind of had their day.”

In this context, Penn is betting on Stagwell’s triple-headed offer to clients – digital media, creative and strategy – to tear strips off account incumbents. ”The combined company really has the capability not to do one or two of those things, but to do all three well, and that’s what clients are looking for.”

The company formed the Stagwell Media Network in August, a parcel of media agencies (including Media Kitchen, Assembly and Multiview) that account for a quarter of its staff and close to $5bn in media spend.

”Some people think it’s all about old-style creative and some people think it’s all about having a black box. I believe it is really about having the right combination.”

He also points to Stagwell’s stable of research and insights firms, and its political consultancy units – Penn was a pollster and political strategist on scores of presidential campaigns, including the Clinton election bids – as magnets for further growth. Political fundraising is ”the fastest growth market of them all,” and one that he claims the company enjoys a 40% stake in.

Expansion opportunities

Next on the to-do list is overseas growth, particularly in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and India. Penn has ambitions to grow through international acquisitions, particularly in the former territory. ”We’re very strong in Europe, Canada, the United States and reasonably strong out of Asia. I think we’ve got room to definitely grow.”

Recruitment is Stagwell’s other focus. Penn says the network can offer would-be recruits something its holding company rivals can’t: space and forward motion. ”Stagwell agencies have a tremendous kind of entrepreneurial control. We’re not a big bureaucracy … I’ve worked to really foster an atmosphere of collaboration.”

It appears to be working; over the last six months, Stagwell has hired 1,000 new staffers across its agencies. ”We’re on the way up. That’s where people want to go, somewhere that’s growing and growing.”

Despite his own experience of the US tech sector (Penn was chief strategy officer at Microsoft until 2015), which has been lately credited with drawing agency talent away from advertising, he says the sector should still be considered a decent place to make a career.

”Frankly, the industry has a lot of great jobs in it. You get to express your creativity, you get highly paid, with a college degree (without having to get a second or third degree). I think it’s actually an industry of opportunity … I think we will continue to draw very strong talent around the world.”

Originally released on

CONTACT

Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Stagwell has announced a six-month sponsorship of Creative Equals Business to provide in-person and virtual training for female creatives. Designed to shatter the glass ceiling the program will furnish participants with the skills they need to fast track their entry to the boardroom.

Originally released on

CONTACT

Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Days after shareholders approved the merger of ad agency networks MDC Partners and Stagwell Group, the newly-formed ad holding company Stagwell, Inc. announced its first major realignment.

The company will combine eight agencies focused on ad-buying, content production and business-to-business marketing to form Stagwell Media Network. 

Stagwell plans to use the combined services of Assembly, ForwardPMX, Media Kitchen, MMI, Grason, Gale, Multiview, and Locaria to punch above its weight when competing with larger rivals such as WPP, Omnicom and Publicis. The network will combine forces to pitch for accounts that would be too big for its individual agencies to win on their own, said ForwardPMX CEO James Townsend, who will also serve as CEO of Stagwell Media.

The agencies will continue to operate as separate brands.

Brad Simms, CEO of Assembly and Gale, will be global chief product officer, leading the new network alongside Townsend and Stagwell Chief Media Officer Deirdre McGlashan.

The launch came in response to advertisers’ increased demands to have a range of services in one place so they can avoid hiring several different agencies, said Townsend. The larger Stagwell also tries to facilitate cross-agency collaboration by organizing profit-and-loss statements around individual clients like Nike rather than by agency or office.

Simms said Stagwell Media hopes to stand out against bigger rivals by emphasizing digital advertising over print and broadcast while also having the scale to participate in events like the annual network upfronts, where billions of dollars in TV and streaming ads are sold.

“We have the capabilities of the traditional networks without the baggage,” he said. “We’re led by the client, not the finance department.”

MDC Partners first reorganized its ad-buying agencies in 2019 after Mark Penn’s Stagwell bought a minority stake and then created three networks led by agencies Anomaly, 72andSunny, and Doner, respectively.

But unlike those other networks, Stagwell Media Group will serve as the larger organization’s “backbone,” since all Stagwell agencies can access its data, media, and tech services, Simms said.

Townsend said Stagwell Media Group, which now employs more than 2,500 people in 15 countries, is on a hiring spree across departments and does not plan to reduce its headcount. He also said the network will be very active in the M&A market over the next six to twelve months, with a focus on rounding out its offering and expanding its presence in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Stagwell CEO Mark Penn said the newly-formed company will report $2.1 billion in annual revenue, putting it just below Havas, the smallest of the “big six” holding companies.

A spokesperson declined to comment on how much of that total comes from the Media Group agencies but said they collectively manage close to $5 billion in annual ad buys.

On August 4, Stagwell Group and MDC Partners reported second-quarter organic revenue growth of 33% and 26%.