WPP’s acquisition of data clean room InfoSum has raised eyebrows both inside and outside the industry, not just because of what it signals about the holding company’s ambitions but also because of what it reveals about its anxieties.
Let’s start with the upside.
The holdco has bought a business it believes, rightly or wrongly, can bolster its cash cow: GroupM. The media buying unit has faced those pressures for some time, and those cracks have played a role in several high-profile client departures over the past year. Yes, WPP has chalked up some headline wins recently — Amazon and Unilever, to name a couple — but there’s no denying that whatever GroupM is selling, CMOs aren’t buying it like they used to.
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