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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.

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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.

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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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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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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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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.

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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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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.