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Media agency giant Horizon is on the hunt for acquisitions as advertising M&A heats up

Bill Koenigsberg, Horizon Media CEO
Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg said his agency was gearing up to make acquisitions this year.

Horizon Media

  • The US media agency giant Horizon Media is hunting for acquisitions, CEO Bill Koenigsberg told BI.
  • The agency wants to enhance its expertise in retail technology and influencer and sports marketing.
  • Industry observers expect a raft of ad agency acquisitions in 2025.

The advertising company Horizon Media is actively searching for acquisitions as it sets its sights on aggressive expansion in 2025.

Horizon Media's CEO, Bill Koenigsberg, told Business Insider in an interview that the agency was particularly interested in teams with strong expertise in areas such as retail technology, influencer marketing, and sports marketing.

Koenigsberg said Horizon felt reinvigorated following significant moves over the past 18 months. It's added several senior hires, restructured the agency to embed product teams with its business-solutions groups, launched a creative agency, and increased investment in its Blu data platform.

"We're 35 years old as a company, but I'll tell you that we're a startup all over again," Koenigsberg told BI.

"Now I have to figure out how to add significantly more resources to get us even faster," he said, though he added that Horizon wasn't looking for additional investment itself.

Advertising industry insiders have predicted that 2025 could be a banner year for acquisitions in the sector, kick-started by the merger of Omnicom and Interpublic Group. That deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year, is set to create the world's largest ad agency holding group.

"The Omnicom-IPG merger process will likely bring about a period of friction in which agencies compete for accounts and employees," Tim Nollen, a senior media tech analyst at Macquarie, wrote in a research note this month. "It could quite possibly also usher in more M&A, whether large or small."

Horizon hasn't been an active acquirer in the past

With about 2,400 people responsible for about $8.5 billion in annual media investment, Horizon is the largest media agency in the US. It's also the biggest global independent media agency, which means it isn't attached to a wider holding company like many of its similar-sized peers. Media agencies plan and buy ad campaigns across platforms, from digital and TV to billboards and newspapers.

While Horizon has expanded its services into areas like retail media and influencer marketing, it has largely kept to the sidelines when it comes to M&A. Advertising holding companies like WPP, Publicis Groupe, and Stagwell typically do at least half a dozen investments or acquisitions in a given year. Horizon's last acquisition β€” the sports marketing agency Blake Sports Group β€” was completed in 2023.

"We probably looked at over 20 acquisitions over the last two years with Temasek," Koenigsberg said, referring to the Singapore-based investment firm Horizon sold a minority stake to in 2021.

Koenigsberg added that there was "nothing out there that we felt was worth what some of these companies were asking."

Horizon is looking at international expansion

According to the media advisory firm R3, Horizon ranked 12th among US media agencies for new business. It estimated the agency brought in $6.7 million in new revenue in 2024 through November, winning clients including Wegmans, ADT, and Auctane.

Greg Paull, the president of growth at R3, said that Horizon had diversified its services into data, retail media, and social media but argued that it needed more of an international edge.

Horizon has offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. For clients with international needs, it works with the Local Planet network, a consortium of independent media agencies across 85 markets.

"While all media is local, more and more big media reviews are global β€” Horizon needs to find partners, or else it will struggle to access the world's largest clients," Paull said.

Koenigsberg said he was focused on helping Horizon get stronger outside the US.

"That's one of our top three priorities," Koenigsberg said. "How do we get more aggressively globally, keeping in mind there's a massive amount of US business for us to go after."

Bob Lord, Horizon Media President
Bob Lord, the president of Horizon Media, says the agency is interested in tech bolt-ons to help it expand.

Horizon Media

Bob Lord, an advertising veteran formerly of IBM, AOL, and Publicis Groupe, joined Horizon this month as the company's president and is set to lead the agency's acquisition hunt.

"I acquired nine different companies when I was at AOL in a span of two years to build up that platform," Lord told BI.

"If you think about the small little speed boats that can be added from a technology standpoint, that's the hypothesis I have," Lord said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Check out the 2-page pitch deck Pinterest is using to woo advertisers as chaos swirls around TikTok

App icons displayed on an iPhone including Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, and Streamlabs.

Rasit Aydogan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

  • Pinterest is moving to take advantage of the chaos around TikTok in the US.
  • In recent days, it began circulating a pitch deck, touting its Gen-Z audience and brand safety.
  • TikTok is back now for US users and some advertisers have returned, while others are more cautious.

TikTok only went "dark" in the US for a few hours this weekend, but that hasn't stopped rivals swooping in to court its advertisers as uncertainty lingers about the app's long-term future.

As advertisers prepared for a possible TikTok ban in the US, Pinterest circulated a pitch deck promoting the company as an alternative.

The deck linked to a hub on Pinterest's website with an offer of a limited-time incentive of bonus media β€” free ad space, in other words.

Pinterest also touted its creative support to help advertisers repurpose their ads for the platform and measurement services to assess campaign success.

"As major shifts take place across social platforms, many brands are developing new plans to deliver their goals," the deck said. (Business Insider obtained a copy, which can be viewed below.)

The deck cited data from the measurement firm Comscore, which said that half of TikTok's US Gen-Z audience was already on Pinterest.

Pinterest clearly has e-commerce advertisers in its sights. The deck referenced a survey conducted by the research company Reach3 that Pinterest commissioned last September. The survey found Pinterest's weekly users were "86% more likely" than weekly users of Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and TikTok to say they were ready to shop when they opened the app.

Pinterest also listed one of the benefits of advertising on its platform as being able to "reflect your company values in your media choices." That certainly feels like a shot at TikTok.

TikTok has said it has around 170 million US users. By comparison, Pinterest was estimated by the research company EMARKETER to have 85.4 million US users last year. EMARKETER pegged TikTok's 2024 ad revenues at $12.34 billion, while it estimated Pinterest pulled in around $2.69 billion.

TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. On Sunday, the company said in a statement that it would work with President Donald Trump on a solution to keep TikTok in the US.

US advertisers are already returning to TikTok, but some are cautious

Last week, the US Supreme Court upheld a law forcing ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell its US operations by January 19 in order to address national security concerns.

TikTok went dark for a few hours starting late Saturday ET, before returning Sunday after Trump expressed his support for the app and said he would work to limit liability for companies that helped it keep running. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order seeking to pause the ban on TikTok for 75 days.

President Donald Trump speaking to journalists as he signs executive orders in the the White House.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday that TikTok could be worth $1 trillion.

Jim Watson/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

As of Tuesday, TikTok wasn't yet back in Apple or Google's US app stores. However, users with the app already downloaded on their phones can access the platform, and some advertisers have restarted campaigns.

Jon Molina, senior director at the digital ad agency Brainlabs, told BI on Tuesday that Brainlabs had recommended that its teams resume their TikTok activity.

"As it stands, the stay on the ban that was signed yesterday is sufficient evidence that there is still opportunity on the platform from a marketing perspective," Molina said, though he added that "anything can change within the blink of an eye."

Some other agencies are taking a more cautious approach. Assembly's EVP of brand experience, Toni Box, said the agency was in the process of pulling social media and behavioral trend data to gauge whether there were any lingering issues that might hamper users' trust and readoption of TikTok. Santini added that Assembly's TikTok rep had also warned them that the TikTok ads manager could take some time to stabilize fully.

Meta and Google are most likely to reap the benefits of any long-term damage to TikTok

Analysts had previously said that Meta and Google would likely be the biggest beneficiaries of a TikTok ban, with an estimated $10 billion of TikTok's US ad revenue up for the taking.

In a research note published January 15, Morgan Stanley analysts said platforms like Snap, Pinterest, and Roblox would also likely gain near-term benefits. The analysts added that those platforms would need to improve their performance and scalability and deliver a healthy relative return on ad spend for any TikTok disruption to pay off for them in the long run.

See the 2-pager Pinterest sent to advertisers in recent days below:

Read the original article on Business Insider

Advertising recruiters share the top skills that can help job candidates stand out in a tough market

Woman writing on Post-It notes on office window
Headhunters, HR execs, and consultants say there are bright spots for ad industry job seekers.

Oscar Wong/Getty Images

  • It's a challenging job market for candidates in the ad industry.
  • Recruiters and industry insiders say there are bright spots for job seekers with the right skills.
  • Advertising employees with expertise in data, tech, and client relations remain in demand.

It's set to be one of the most volatile years yet for the advertising industry.

There's massive ad agency consolidation, return-to-office mandates, and the opportunities and threats posed by artificial intelligence.

It's a lot.

So, spare a thought for the ad industry workers trying to figure out their next career moves. Do they stay on Madison Avenue? Or take the first exit?

The challenging outlook for job hunters is true for those in the early stages of their careers all the way through to the senior ranks. But headhunters, human resources execs, consultants, and other industry insiders told Business Insider there are bright spots for employees who can double down on the skills that are in demand from ad bosses. Those with the best chance of success will be able to demonstrate data and tech capabilities, as well as a bulging Rolodex of top client contacts.

"If you have not been pioneering in AI and data-driven roles in the last 900 days, I don't know what we can offer you," said Michele James, founder of James & Co, United Talent Agency's executive search practice.

James added that there would be little interest for a senior leader "if you don't have interpretative data management skills, a machine learning strategy, if you can't be a player-coach to your client partners." James said this reflects the transformation of the ad industry.

Over time, advertising agencies have expanded their services from creating and distributing ads, to an offering more akin to consultancies, moving into areas such as digital transformation, data strategy, and commerce. As client demands for these services grow, agencies are seeking allrounders who can bring it all together.

"Both brand owners and agency groups are hiring leaders whose skillset equips them to build and choreograph data, tech, and content capabilities at scale," said Gary Stolkin, CEO of The Talent Business, an executive search firm.

A tough advertising job market β€” with some bright spots

Employment in advertising, PR, and related services jobs in the US declined by 1,500 jobs in December to 520,800, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics β€” as overall US employment grew by 256,000 jobs.

woman looks at two jobs.
Ad industry job hunters are encouraged to seek out businesses in growth mode, such as those that have recently taken on private equity investment and are now bulking up.

Chelsea Jia Feng/BI

While ad industry employment was up by 2,900 jobs versus December 2023, industry insiders said there were now fewer senior roles. That was in part due to agencies trimming costs amid shrinking client budgets. The trend is exacerbated by mergers such as the forthcoming tie-up between Omnicom and IPG, which will create the world's largest holding company but will likely lead to job losses, industry insiders have said.

"Everyone I talk to is getting rid of people who were overpaid and hiring back at a different level," said Lori Murphree, founder of the ad industry M&A advisory firm Evalla Advisors.

Murphree said there are some exceptions, such as the raft of independent agencies that have recently taken on private equity investment and are now bulking up.

Out: Skills that AI excels at

Industry insiders are updating their rΓ©sumΓ©s to reflect the changing times.

A LinkedIn analysis found that social media management, e-commerce optimization, paid media advertising, performance marketing, and influencer marketing were among the fastest-growing skills people in the advertising and marketing industries have added to their profiles on the platform between January 2025 and January 2024.

"With nearly 40% of marketers under pressure to measure ROI in the short term, it's no surprise that they are increasingly leaning into skills like influencer marketing to build trust with their audiences and drive continued growth," said Tom Pepper, senior director at LinkedIn. (ROI refers to "return on investment".)

Advertising and marketing LinkedIn users were less likely to add established skills like "marketing communications" to their profiles, as well as skills like web design and email marketing, where AI is increasingly replacing human work.

"Automation continues to squeeze PR, copywriting, media owner sales, and production roles," said Simon Francis, CEO of Flock Associates, a marketing consultancy and search firm.

Advertising recruiters said they are searching for candidates whose career paths have taken unusual or varied turns. This can sometimes indicate that they are adaptable to the industry's ever-changing nature.

"Instead of skillsets, I consistently focus on mindset," said Monica Torres, executive director of global recruiting at the ad agency TBWA\Worldwide. "Having a mindset of curiosity and optimism, those are the traits that are always in demand because they're going to make you a problem solver for clients."

The Cannes Lions promenade 2023.
Ad execs encourage their peers to seek out unusual career paths and international roles.

Tristan Fewings

International experience can also be a bonus, industry insiders said.

Industry veteran Emiliano GonzΓ‘lez De Pietri began his career in Madrid, Spain. He said his career and mindset got a jolt in 2013 when he moved to Peru to become deputy chief creative officer of the ad agency Circus Grey, later simply known as Grey.

While he spoke the same language as his colleagues, he clearly didn't share the same cultural references, humor, and understanding of local consumer behavior. He made it his mission to adapt.

"Just like a student, doing at least one year abroad is going to do wonders for your worldliness and ability to be a more interesting person," said De Pietri, who has now returned to Madrid as a global creative partner at McCann Worldgroup, having also done stints in London and New York in between.

"You encounter entirely different business problems, situations, politics β€” you will become a more versatile advertising beast," he added.

One thing in the industry hasn't changed: the constant fight for new business. But it's not just the domain of a dedicated agency growth department. Almost everyone in senior roles is expected to have those relationships, said Sasha Martens, president of the advertising executive recruiting firm Sasha the Mensch.

"What you're seeing is a lot of creatives a lot closer to the client than they were in the past," Martens said. "There's a greater understanding that you have to understand the strategic needs of your clients."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Advertisers worry about the TikTok ban's damage while holding out hope the app won't 'go dark' for long

Keep TikTok badge at protest

Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

  • Advertisers hope TikTok can return to the US soon after a ban that will likely take effect Sunday.
  • TikTok's future in the US now seems to hinge on President-elect Donald Trump.
  • Advertisers say a long US shutdown will degrade TikTok's value because users will flee.

If TikTok returns to the US after "going dark," would advertisers come back, too?

That was the big question floating around the ad industry on Friday after the Supreme Court upheld a law forcing TikTok's Chinese owner to divest from the app or see it banned on Sunday.

Brands will not be able to run ad campaigns in the US once the TikTok ban comes into effect, but they will still be able to log in to its ad platform to manage ads running on the app in other countries, several ad agency execs told Business Insider.

TikTok reps have said they will look to refund advertisers for campaigns that weren't completed by the time the ban takes effect, one of those agency execs said. They, like some others interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to discuss clients' plans and to protect their business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Despite this movement and disruption β€” and allegations from Congress that the app could be weaponized by the Chinese government for data collection and to spread propaganda β€” industry insiders said most advertisers are ready to bounce back should TikTok be switched back on in the US.

"Our clients are seeing too much success on the platform to turn away from it completely," a second agency exec told BI.

TikTok generated around $12 billion in advertising revenue in the US last year, according to estimates from the research firm EMARKETER.

As the potential of a TikTok shutdown loomed in recent months, agencies were already advising clients to distribute their TikTok budgets across a broader range of apps should the ban come to pass.

Jon Molina, a senior director at the digital agency Brainlabs, said it's advising clients to put around 75% of their TikTok budgets with Meta on Facebook and Instagram Reels and the remaining 25% on YouTube Shorts once the ban comes into effect. Advertisers should monitor the performance of those campaigns over the coming days and optimize their budgets accordingly, he said.

While Meta and YouTube are expected to be big beneficiaries of TikTok's woes, some ad buyers said they're not like-for-like replacements.

"A lot of brands have not only seen advertising results but new engagement organically from TikTok β€” people reviewing products, people filming unboxing videos," a third agency exec said. "Brands are able to connect with new and diverse audiences, and those will be the expectations of any platform moving forward."

Advertisers are hoping a TikTok rescue deal is secured quickly

TikTok and many of its advertisers are now looking to Trump to save the app once he takes office next week. Trump, who recently said he opposes a TikTok ban, wrote in a social-media post on Friday that he would make a decision on the app soon.

A TikTok rep pointed BI to a video posted on Friday, in which TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew thanked Trump for the "opportunity to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States."

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifying at Capitol Hill.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.

Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Advertisers' lasting appetite for TikTok will depend partly on how long a rescue deal takes β€” especially as its parent company ByteDance is expected to need the Chinese government's sign-off. If creators find success elsewhere, they might not be inclined to reestablish themselves on TikTok, and advertisers will follow the audiences.

"I'd be shocked if a big TikTok creator could replicate that success in one week, but if it's several months, it could be too far gone," said Shamsul Chowdhury, EVP of paid social at the digital agency Jellyfish.

The third agency exec said that some advertisers would have big questions for TikTok's new owner before they picked up where they left off. For example, they might want reassurances that they could continue to run global campaigns from the US, more details about how their data would now be handled, and information about which brand-safety controls they could use.

Brands are ramping up on YouTube Shorts and Meta Reels

For now, advertisers are getting ready to put their contingency plans into action. Rival apps are keen to make the process as easy as possible. January is marketing budgeting season, when many media companies entice advertisers with incentives.

"We are hearing from multiple providers, including other social platforms and non-social media providers, about reallocation incentives such as how TikTok's audience is also available on their platforms, added value based on minimum incremental spend, discounts on higher impact units like takeovers, and funding to support creative projects," said Prerna Talreja, managing director of integrated investment and partnerships at the media agency Crossmedia.

As advertisers drag and drop their TikTok campaigns into Meta and Google, ad prices are likely to spike, given the supply-and-demand auction dynamics of those platforms.

"You may end up seeing CPMs going haywire for a short period of time," said James Poulter, head of AI and innovation at House 337, a creative agency. CPM refers to the cost to reach 1,000 ad impressions.

The language-learning app Duolingo, a big TikTok advertiser known for its "unhinged" marketing featuring its green owl mascot and snarky responses in the comments, has seen this movie before.

Manu Orssaud Duolingo
Duolingo's marketing chief, Manu Orssaud, said the company has been doubling down on YouTube Shorts.

Duolingo

Duolingo's chief marketing officer, Manu Orssaud, said the company was shown the importance of adaptability when TikTok was banned in India in 2020.

The brand has been doubling down on YouTube in particular. Duolingo grew its view count on YouTube Shorts by 423% to 1.1 billion last year, and it added 3.3 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, bringing the total to 5.2 million.

"While TikTok's algorithm has been a game-changer, what truly drives our success is the creativity and innovation of our social team," Orssaud said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Meta could rake in billions in ad dollars if TikTok is banned

Meta sign
Meta slashed its DEI team in January.

Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

  • The Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that could ban TikTok in the US.
  • The ban could mean the migration of users β€” and billions of ad dollars β€” to competitors.
  • Meta could gain up to $3.38 billion solely through freed up ad revenue, eMarketer estimated.

Meta stands to be one of the largest beneficiaries if TikTok is booted from US app stores on Sunday.

TikTok is facing a likely ban in the United States after the Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that forces ByteDance, the app's Chinese parent company, to sell TikTok's US operations or be removed from American app stores.

The law prevents US users from downloading TikTok or installing updates, which could eventually make the platform unusable. TikTok's lawyers said in a Supreme Court hearing that the app could also "go dark," blocking existing users from seeing videos.

The ban would hobble one of the largest social media companies in the United States, leaving the time users spend on the app and billions of dollars of ad revenue up for grabs, according to an analysis from Business Insider's sister company EMARKETER.

"Our latest forecast estimates that TikTok generated $12.34 billion in US ad revenues in 2024," the analysis said. "Assuming TikTok could lose between 50% and 70% of ad revenues due to a ban, $6.17 billion to $8.64 billion of ad spending could need a new home."

And one social media giant's loss could be another social media giant's gain.

The analysis estimated that Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, could reap anywhere between $2.46 billion to $3.38 billion in ad revenue with a TikTok ban.

Spokespeople for Tiktok and Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similarly, Morgan Stanley analysts say that Meta will be the "largest fundamental winner of any TikTok ban" in part due to its existing user base and data set.

The ban could add 5 to 9 percent in Meta's earnings per share for the 2026 fiscal year, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.

Instagram scrolling is also poised to replace some of the time US users spent on TikTok, analysts say.

EMARKETER estimates that TikTok users in the US spent nearly an hour of their day on the app in 2024 and nearly three quarters of those users were also on Instagram.

"That leaves close to an hour of their daily media time up for grabs," eMarketer analysts wrote.

Morgan Stanley analysts say that Meta would gain around $.30 to $.60 to their 2026 earnings per share estimates for every 10% of TikTok's US time Meta captures.

The upside of a TikTok ban won't be concentrated to Meta.

Alphabet's YouTube and Snapchat may also see some benefits with TikTok out of the way.

For advertisers, a looming TikTok ban should serve as a prescient reminder that no platform, however large, is invincible.

"Although it's difficult to say if the TikTok ban will go ahead, as it's possible TikTok could sell at the last minute, this should serve as a warning not to put all your content eggs in one basket," Danielle Dullaghan, social strategy director, at the marketing agency Iris, told Business Insider.

James Poulter, head of AI and innovation at London-based ad agency House 337, told BI that the brands and creators who will succeed are those diversified across platforms and focused on "owned assets like websites and email lists."

"The brands and creators who thrive in uncertain times are those who prepare for the unexpected, ensuring their stories can be told regardless of the platform," he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Texas-based Clapper is surging in the app store as the TikTok ban leads users to hunt for alternatives

Clapper app screenshot
Social-video app Clapper has soared in the app download charts as TikTok users seek out alternatives.

Clapper

  • The app Clapper is reaping the benefits of the forthcoming TikTok ban.
  • Clapper is a social-video app founded in 2020 and based in Texas.
  • It offers an ad-free experience and monetization for creators.

Clapper, an upstart video and livestreaming app, has soared to third place in the free iPhone app download charts. The surge started in the days before the Supreme Court reached its decision to uphold a law to ban TikTok in the US.

Clapper was founded in 2020 when the first Trump administration initially floated the possibility of a TikTok ban. Bita Motiie, Clapper's head of operations, told BI that since then, Clapper has seen spikes in user growth any time the topic has been in the news.

"We've seen skyrocketing numbers of users joining us recently due to the fact that people are actively now looking for an alternative," Motiie said.

A Clapper spokesperson said the company had added more than 2 million users in the past week.

Data analyzed by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower found that Clapper had increased its US ad spend 10-fold in the month to January 14 this year compared with the same period in 2024. Nearly 100% of its US ad spend was allocated to TikTok, Sensor Tower said.

Clapper had already upped its advertising budget by 35% in the second half of 2024, compared with the first, suggesting the outlay was a response to news of an upcoming TikTok ban, according to Sensor Tower.

The top trending topic on Clapper on Wednesday through to Friday when the ban was confirmed was #TikTokRefugees.

A similar dynamic seems to have pushed the TikTok-like app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, to No. 1 on the free iPhone apps leaderboard.

Clapper screenshot
Clapper has been seeing an influx of users, likely because of a potential TikTok ban.

Clapper

The US Congress passed a divest-or-ban law last year forcing TikTok to stop operating in the US if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, doesn't sell the app. TikTok told the Supreme Court that the app would "go dark" in the US on Sunday if the divestment deadline isn't extended. The Supreme Court on Friday confirmed it would uphold the law.

"A lot of our focus right now is helping all these TikTok users join our platform and learn about the differences," Motiie said.

Clapper shares much of the same vertical video functionality as TikTok but differs in a few key ways. It's only available to users 17 or older and doesn't carry ads.

"People are being bombarded with ads 24/7 through their phones, and we want to provide a safe haven where creators can focus on that genuine connection with others," Motiie said.

Creators can earn money on Clapper by receiving gifts from other users in livestreams, group chats, and direct messages. Creators can also sell subscriptions to their content or items on Clapper Shop. Clapper takes a 30% commission from some creator earnings and 5% from Clapper Shop.

Clapper's content can appear rougher around the edges than some other social-media platforms. On opening the app in the UK on Wednesday morning, BI was served a video of a man seemingly getting a horrific eye injury after being hit in the face, a woman almost being gored by a bull, and sexually suggestive "thirst traps."

Users can turn off "not safe for work" content. The app also forbids sexually explicit content or nudity.

Motiie said Clapper was focused on hiring three to four additional community managers and utilizing AI moderation tools. Clapper is a small business at present, with around 20 staff based in Dallas, Texas.

A Clapper spokesperson said the company hadn't taken on any outside funding since 2023, when it raised $3 million in seed financing. The spokesperson said Clapper, which is privately owned, is profitable and that it is not currently seeking further investment.

Industry insiders say Clapper needs to move quickly to seize the moment

Asti Wagner, CEO of Invyted, an app that connects brands with influencers, said Clapper would need to move quickly to appeal to creators and refine its marketing to ensure its overnight popularity translates into lasting business success.

"TikTok was lucky in that it massively boomed in lockdown when everyone was on their phones," Wagner told BI.

"The 'no ads' thing is really interesting, but I don't know how long that will last," Wagner said. Social platforms, in general, tend to derive most of their revenue from ads.

Motiie said it was very unlikely Clapper would introduce ads over the next couple of years. However, that doesn't mean brands can't collaborate with Clapper creators, she added. Clapper is also encouraging brands to set up their own profiles on the app.

Gigi Robinson, a creator with more than 150,000 followers on TikTok, joined Clapper in 2020.

She's only posted four videos and grown her audience there to around 1,000 followers. However, Robinson said that in light of TikTok's position, she's considering posting more content on Clapper and has been in touch with the company's partnership team to get her profile verified.

Robinson said the potential of the app going dark has highlighted that creators shouldn't be over-reliant on any single platform for their audience and earnings.

"A majority of creators are scrambling right now," Robinson told BI. "That's going to be the lasting impact."

This story has been updated with new details.

Read the original article on Business Insider

A casino is getting into the ad-network business as 'commerce media' continues to surge

Mohegan casino craps table
Mohegan is launching an ad network aimed at gamblers in casinos and other visitors to its resorts.

Mohegan

  • The casino and entertainment-resort company Mohegan is launching an ad network.
  • Mohegan is working with LiveRamp to allow advertisers to target its customers.
  • The casino media network is the latest to join the rapidly growing commerce and retail media space.

Meet the latest entrant to the buzzy commerce-media space: the casino and entertainment-resort company Mohegan.

Commerce media, also often referred to as retail media, is growing rapidly as retailers, online marketplaces, financial-services companies, airlines, and more enter the high-margin business of selling advertising on their apps and websites.

The research company EMARKETER estimated last year that US retail media spending would grow by 26%, to $54.85 billion, in 2024.

Mohegan exclusively told Business Insider that it partnered with the data company LiveRamp to launch what the companies described as the "industry's first casino media network."

The network would let advertisers target visitors to its resorts in the US, Canada, and South Korea across kiosks, slot machines, and other digital signage, as well as users of its app and Momentum loyalty program. Mohegan also owns the Connecticut Sun WNBA team.

The companies said this real estate β€” which includes its Mohegan Sun arena, casinos, hotel rooms, restaurants, and retail stores β€” equated to 200 million potential ad impressions each month.

While Mohegan already runs some advertising β€” on its slot machines, for example β€” the partnership with LiveRamp would help advertisers identify data attributes about its players so they can more precisely target their desired audiences, said Rich Roberts, the president of Mohegan Digital.

Roberts said gamblers tend to have the kind of disposable income that's appealing to high-end restaurants or car dealerships.

"Our customer base has grown significantly from a digital perspective with hundreds of thousands of players who do spend a considerable amount of money on the site," Roberts said.

LiveRamp works with many retail and commerce media networks, such as those operated by Albertsons, Dollar General, and United Airlines.

Initially, Mohegan will pitch its ad network to its existing vendor partners, such as the entertainment companies that stage events at its venues, restaurants, retailers inside its malls, and other local businesses.

Later, LiveRamp aims to extend the data offering so that advertisers can target Mohegan's audiences across other websites, apps, and properties that it doesn't own β€” known in the industry as off-site media.

"What we have learned across the industry is that you start with your owned and operated inventory, but very quickly you fill out most of the inventory β€” that's where collaboration comes into play," said Vihan Sharma, LiveRamp's chief revenue officer.

Marc Goldberg, the CEO of the media advisory and consulting service Stages Collective, said Mohegan would need to focus heavily on pitching advertisers on its audience's unique assets.

"The math and margins are attractive to a lot of companies as they see what a retail media network can deliver at scale," Goldberg said. "The problem is that not all businesses have a unique enough audience to attract both the attention and the ad dollars."

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Elon Musk's X is gearing up to add more defendants to its lawsuit against advertisers

Elon Musk
Elon Musk owns X, which is planning to add more defendants to its lawsuit against advertisers.

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

  • Elon Musk's X plans to add more defendants to its lawsuit against advertisers.
  • The lawsuit centers on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and its advertiser members.
  • A new legal filing says X wants to add "multiple additional defendants" to the suit.

Elon Musk's X is getting ready to add more defendants to its lawsuit that accuses advertisers of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform.

X initially filed its lawsuit in a Texas court in August. The complaint alleges that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a now defunct initiative from the advertiser trade body the World Federation of Advertisers, colluded to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from X, formerly Twitter.

The current defendants in the case are the WFA, CVS Health, Mars, the energy company Orsted, and Twitch. (Twitch was added to the lawsuit later than the other defendants. Unilever was initially named as a defendant but reached an agreement with X and was dropped from the suit in October.)

A joint filing from X's legal representatives and counsel for the defendants said X planned to file a second amended complaint "in which it will add multiple additional defendants."

The filing said X would share a draft of its second complaint with the current defendants by January 20 and file it with the court by January 25.

Reps for X, CVS, Mars, Orsted, and Twitch didn't respond to requests for comment.

A WFA spokesperson declined to comment. The WFA has previously said that it intends to defend itself in court and that it is confident the outcome will demonstrate that it adhered to competition law.

'Brand safety' is a growing political flash point

News that X could add more defendants to its suit comes at a fraught time for marketers and for the practice of "brand safety."

Much of X's lawsuit against GARM and its members was based on an investigation by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, into whether advertisers were illegally banding together to demonetize conservative platforms and voices in violation of antitrust law. Jordan continues to investigate advertisers' and agencies' work with GARM.

Jim Jordan
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has been investigating whether advertisers colluded to defund conservative media.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

The Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee published their own report last month accusing Jordan of abusing his oversight power.

Their report argued that Jordan and his allies' goal was "not to conduct antitrust oversight as they claim, but rather to silence criticism of harmful online content and those who promote it."

Russell Dye, a spokesperson for the committee, said its investigation proved the collusion of left-wing advocates to secretly censor conservative speech.

"Those in the media and elsewhere that deny the collusion supported by clear documentation are themselves pushing disinformation," Dye said in a statement.

GARM discontinued operations after X sued it, saying that as a small, nonprofit organization, it lacked the resources to fight the lawsuit.

The WFA is also facing a separate lawsuit from the video site Rumble, which accuses GARM, drinks giant Diageo, the ad agency holding company WPP, and its media arm GroupM of collectively agreeing to restrict advertising on social platforms including Rumble. In November, Texas' attorney general, Ken Paxton, launched an investigation into the WFA over advertiser boycotts.

This month, Meta announced plans to shake up its content-moderation policies in the US, which had some advertisers worried that the tech giant was loosening its brand-safety standards. But unlike in the past, there hasn't been any public suggestion that brands intend to pull ad dollars from Meta in response. Advertising insiders told BI that it was partly a reflection of how reliant marketers had become on Meta, but also that advertisers had become more cautious about publicly criticizing or boycotting platforms and media given the political environment.

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Influencers are suing Capital One, alleging its Shopping browser extension 'stole' credit for sales from them

Capital One logo on marble background
A lawsuit alleges Capital One's Shopping browser unfairly claimed credit for driving affiliate-marketing sales.

UCG/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

  • Influencers have filed a lawsuit against Capital One.
  • They allege its Shopping extension hurt their earnings by unfairly claiming credit for sales.
  • Capital One said it disagreed with the premise of the lawsuit.

First, the influencers came for PayPal's Honey. Now, Capital One is under scrutiny.

Capital One is the subject of a lawsuit filed this week by creators who allege the company's Shopping browser extension hurt their affiliate-marketing commissions by stealing credit for driving sales.

"We disagree with the premise of the complaint and look forward to defending ourselves in court," a Capital One spokesperson told Business Insider.

Capital One Shopping is a free browser extension that searches for discount codes and coupons, compares prices across about 30,000 online retailers, and lets users earn rewards that can be exchanged for gift cards. It makes money by earning a commission when its users purchase an item from its merchant partners.

In a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday in a Virginia court, two creators who promote products on social media allege the browser extension is designed to "systematically appropriate commissions that belong to influencers."

The lawsuit alleges Capital One Shopping "stole credit" by swapping out influencers' affiliate-marketing browser cookies with its own. Cookies are small data files stored on a user's device that help companies track users' browsing history.

The war for the last click

Much like recent lawsuits filed by influencers against PayPal over its Honey browser extension, the Capital One Shopping case homes in on the marketing practice of "last-click attribution."

In this model, cookies, unique web links, promo codes, and other analytics tags are used to determine the last piece of content a user engages with before they make a purchase. That entity, be it a YouTube video or an ad, gets credit for the purchase.

The practice has fallen out of favor in some marketing circles because it doesn't consider the full cycle of persuading someone to buy a product. There are also concerns that an intermediary may try to game the system to unfairly claim last-click credit for purchases that they had little to do with.

Companies in the affiliate-marketing industry often seek to adhere to "stand down" practices, where they won't override another affiliate's cookies.

In their lawsuit, the content creators Jesika Brodiski and Peter Hayward allege Capital One Shopping took credit for sales and conversions that were originally derived from affiliate-marketing links they shared on social media.

Brodiski shared affiliate-marketing links on social media for products on Walmart.com, and the lawsuit claims that β€” if a user had the Capital One Shopping extension activated during the checkout process β€” Capital One would remove her associated cookie and replace it with its own. The lawsuit says Brodiski earned about $20,000 through affiliate marketing in 2024 but that her earnings were hampered by Capital One Shopping.

Capital One Lawsuit screenshot
The lawsuit alleges that if users have the Capital One Shopping extension activated, Capital One can unfairly take credit for some sales.

Jesika Brodiski and Peter Hayward, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff(s), v. Capital One Financial Corporation, Wikibuy LLC, and Wikibuy Holdings LLC.

Hayward is part of the Amazon affiliate-marketing program and similarly alleges Capital One would replace his referral tag with its own.

The lawsuit also says Brodiski and Hayward "face future harm in the form of stolen referral fees and sales commissions because the Capital One Shopping browser extension continues to steal affiliate marketing commissions with each passing day."

A court will need to certify the class action in order for the case to proceed

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial. If the case is certified as a class action, other influencers could join the suit.

Christopher Roberts, a partner and class-action attorney at the law firm Butsch Roberts & Associates, told BI the most difficult part of such cases is getting the class certified. The court will need to rigorously analyze various factors, such as whether the class is big enough and whether it would make more sense to litigate complicated cases individually.

Certification aside, Roberts said he felt the case would come down to what discovery showed.

"This case, on its face, is very well pled," Roberts said, "and it's pretty specific as to the code for this app being supplanted on the computer so that they can get the affiliate payment."

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Read the memo advertising giant WPP sent to staff calling them back to the office 4 days a week

Mark Read, CEO of WPP Group, the largest global advertising and public relations agency, poses for a portrait at their offices in London, Britain, July 17, 2019.  REUTERS/Toby Melville
Mark Read, the CEO of WPP, is telling staff to come into the office four days a week starting in April.

Reuters

  • The advertising giant WPP is telling workers to come to the office four days a week from April.
  • Business Insider obtained the internal memo sent to the company's 114,000 employees.
  • "I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person," CEO Mark Read said in the memo.

The advertising giant WPP has told its workforce of more than 100,000 employees to return to the office at least four days a week.

"From the beginning of April this year, the expectation across WPP will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office," WPP CEO Mark Read wrote in a memo sent to staff on Tuesday and seen by Business Insider.

The Financial Times first reported the move.

The policy is set to go into effect in April to give staff time to make adjustments and to "address capacity requirements" in offices, he wrote.

The CEO said in-office attendance was associated with "stronger employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance."

"I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person," he wrote. "It's easier to learn from each other, it's a better way to mentor colleagues starting out in the industry, and it helps us win pitches as a truly integrated team."

Mark Read WPP
Read.

WPP

Under the new policy, WPP will allow staff one flexible working day a week and consider individual circumstances through a formal approval process, a person familiar with the matter told BI.

One WPP employee, speaking with BI on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on company policy, said they still had questions about the return-to-office plan's practicalities. They said that in some offices, there were already issues with securing enough desk space or meeting rooms, for example.

AT&T this week began implementing a staggered five-day RTO mandate, and workers told BI that limited available desks and elevators at some offices complicated their return.

Amazon encountered office-capacity issues last year, which, as BI previously reported, delayed its full return-to-office plan for some employees.

Another WPP insider said they felt the move would be positive for younger staff and help them network and learn from colleagues, while allowing flexibility for those who required it.

WPP's announcement follows that of its fellow advertising giant Publicis Groupe, which last year told employees to return to the office at least three days a week. The company later fired hundreds of employees for noncompliance with the mandate, Ad Age reported in October.

Bruce Daisley, a workplace-culture consultant and former Twitter vice president, said WPP's return-to-office policy would be an employee-morale gamble because advertising jobs already aren't as lucrative and aspirational as they once were.

"Working in an advertising agency used to be gloriously paid, now those who work in the field squint into spreadsheets all day earning salaries that are often substantially lower than the clients and media owners they deal with," Daisley wrote in his Make Work Better newsletter.

Read the full memo CEO Mark Read sent to WPP employees:

To everyone at WPP
I hope you had a restful holiday season and the chance to recharge over the break.
As I wrote to you in December, 2025 is going to be a year of opportunity for WPP β€” a year when we can win through a relentless focus on our clients.
With that in mind, I wanted to share our priorities for the next 12 months, as well as a change we are going to make in the way we work.
Clients, creativity and our work
WPP's mission is to deliver creative transformation for the world's leading brands. This means not only producing exceptional work in every discipline of modern marketing, but helping clients transform how they operate for a very different world. This is ever more true of our largest and most important clients, who come to us for the quality of what we do, the breadth of our skills, and our ability to prepare them for the future.
While industry mergers and jostling for status may distract our competitors, focus will be paramount for us in 2025. We have the opportunity to stand out by being more obsessed than ever with serving our clients. In every single decision we make, we should ask ourselves "how will this help us do even better work for our clients?" Those companies who embrace this philosophy will be those who emerge on top.
Technology, data and AI
Demand from clients for creative ideas, effective media plans, brilliant PR campaigns and outstanding design remains constant, but the way in which we deliver our work is changing faster than I have ever seen. That's why technology, data and AI are at the heart of our plans for the future, and why adoption of our AI-driven marketing operating system WPP Open has grown so quickly. Keeping up that momentum is another key objective for 2025.
WPP Open helped us win a number of 2024's biggest reviews and we are going to increase our investment in Open this year to build on the success it has brought us. It will be central to how we bring an integrated, AI-enabled offer to market, with the goal of producing better results for clients and winning more than our fair share of pitches in the year ahead.
A culture of winning, together
Finally, we are going to focus on the culture of our company. For all our technological sophistication, we remain a people business. Across everything we do, our success still relies on the fundamentals of human connection, creativity and relationships. Teams of talented individuals, working towards common goals, are what drives growth for our clients and our agencies.
I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person. It's easier to learn from each other, it's a better way to mentor colleagues starting out in the industry, and it helps us win pitches as a truly integrated team. The data from across WPP agencies shows that higher levels of office attendance are associated with stronger employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance. More of our clients are moving in this direction and expecting it of the teams who work with them.
For all these reasons, spending more time together is important to all of us, and we are making a change to help that happen. From the beginning of April this year, the expectation across WPP will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office.
This doesn't mean we're going back to old ways of doing things. During the pandemic we all learned the value of greater flexibility in our working lives and of being trusted to balance work and personal commitments. We need to keep that spirit of flexibility and trust, and will approach this transition with pragmatism and an understanding of people's different circumstances. There will be a clear process to request additional flexibility β€” including for those with caring responsibilities, health issues and other considerations. Some roles that have always been fully or largely remote will continue as they are.
We know that for some colleagues this new policy will require adjustments to their routines and arrangements, which is why it will not come into effect until April β€” giving people time to make any changes they need to. There is also work to do between now and April to ensure we make the best use of our workspaces. Our WPP campuses offer superb working environments in beautifully designed buildings with leading environmental credentials. But it will take detailed planning in the coming months to address capacity requirements and other related areas, and I'd like to thank the teams who are already hard at work figuring that out.
Your leaders are working closely with the WPP People and Real Estate teams, and will follow up with next steps for your part of the business. It's important that we take a consistent approach across our agencies, who will communicate the requirements to you in detail. In the meantime, visit insideWPP for FAQs, details of the policy, and an AI-powered chat agent to help answer your questions.
A collaborative, winning culture is what makes WPP and our agencies a great place to work, and it's the key to our future growth and success. I firmly believe this change we are making will protect and enhance that culture, for the benefit of everyone.
As always, if you want to get in touch, email me.
Mark
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Advertisers say Meta's content-moderation changes make them uneasy. They won't stop spending.

Jim Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg
Meta execs Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg have outlined a new, looser approach to content moderation.

Getty Images

  • Some advertisers are expressing concerns about Meta's commitment to brand safety.
  • Meta this week unveiled a new approach to content moderation, removing third-party fact-checkers.
  • Many ad industry insiders doubt it'll lead to major spending shifts, however.

Meta's new plan to shake up its content-moderation policies has some advertisers worried about the social giant's brand-safety standards. Despite that, ad insiders who spoke with Business Insider generally didn't expect the changes to hurt Meta's business.

"It's the final nail in the coffin for platform responsibility," an ad agency veteran told BI. They and some others interviewed asked for anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

The industry reaction β€” or lack of it β€” reflects both advertisers' reliance on Meta and the shifting conversation around how brands should approach "brand safety" or "suitability," which refer to when marketers try to avoid funding or appearing next to content they deem unsuitable.

"A lot of brands have shied away from platforms that are too tied to news or controversy, mostly out of fear of cancel culture," said Toni Box, EVP of brand experience at the media agency Assembly. "But at some point, we have to ask: Are we missing opportunities to connect with people during meaningful moments because we don't trust audiences to tell the difference between a news story and an ad?"

The brand-safety tides are shifting

Meta used to bend over backward to address advertisers' brand-safety concerns. But brands weren't mentioned in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's video announcing the changes or in policy chief Joel Kaplan's interview on Tuesday morning with Fox News' "Fox and Friends."

Instead, their pitch was about preventing the censorship of speech. Meta said it plans to replace third-party fact-checkers with a community-based fact-checking program, addressing criticism that the previous system was too partisan and was often overcorrective. The company also said it would loosen some content moderation restrictions on topics that are "part of mainstream discourse" and be more open to reintroducing political content to people's feeds.

Meta did give a very brief public nod to advertisers. A Meta spokesperson pointed BI to a LinkedIn post from Meta ads exec Nicola Mendelsohn that said the company continued to be focused on ensuring brand safety and suitability by offering a suite of tools for advertisers. In an email from Meta account reps to ad buyers, copies of which were viewed by BI, the company said it knew how important it was to continue giving advertisers transparency and control over their brand suitability. And in an interview with BI, Meta's chief marketing officer Alex Schultz said advertisers' primary brand safety concerns were around hate speech and adult nudity and that its tools would focus on "precision and not be taking down things we shouldn't be taking down."

Despite private grumbling from some advertisers about the changes, and how they appeared to be timed to appease incoming President Donald Trump, industry insiders said they don't expect much public blowback on Meta.

Advertiser boycotts and similar actions were once seen as a point of leverage for marketers. One high-profile example was the 2020 #StopHateFor Profit movement when hundreds of major brands protested Meta's policies on hate speech and misinformation.

But brand safety has recently become a political hot potato and been a flash point for some influential, right-leaning figures.

Last year, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, began investigating whether advertisers had illegally colluded to demonetize conservative platforms and voices. Elon Musk's X went on to sue the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, the brand-safety initiative at the center of Jordan's investigation, and some of its advertiser members after they withdrew ad dollars from the platform. GARM discontinued activities days later. Jordan has continued to press advertisers about their involvement in GARM, and X's litigation against it and some of its members is ongoing.

A media agency employee told BI that they had clients who were now more cautious about criticizing platforms in public or saying they would pull spending.

Industry analysts also said that β€” politics aside β€” many marketers would likely continue to spend with Meta so long as it delivered them the audiences and ad performance they had come to expect. Meta commands about 21% of the US digital ad market, behind only Google, according to data firm EMARKETER.

"For us, after Google, Meta is the next-best performer as far as ROI is concerned," said Shamsul Chowdhury, VP of paid social at the digital ad agency Jellyfish, referring to the return on investment advertisers get from their campaigns.

Advertisers are split on whether the changes will improve Meta's platforms

Some advertisers who spoke with BI said they had outstanding questions about the new thresholds Meta would apply to removing posts, what's on the road map for monitoring trends around misinformation, and whether they would still be able to effectively apply their own third-party brand suitability software to content on Meta's apps.

Advertisers said they would pay close attention to how Meta's Community Notes-like feature would work in practice, especially as some hadn't been impressed with X's performance in this area with a similar feature.

"This is a major step back and likely going to result in serious issues where social platforms, not just Meta, are going to hide behind the notion that their users do the moderation and fact-checking for them and they are free speech platforms," said Ruben Schreurs, CEO of the marketing consultancy Ebiquity.

It's not entirely clear how effective X's Community Notes have been. A study published last year by researchers at the University of Luxembourg, University of Melbourne, and JLU Giessen concluded that X's "Community Notes might be too slow to effectively reduce engagement with misinformation in the early (and most viral) stage of diffusion." Still, a separate study from the Qualcomm Institute within UC San Diego found Community Notes helped counter false information about Covid vaccines.

Some advertising execs supported Meta's announcement. Two media agency reps said increasing the number of conversations people are having on the platform could benefit Meta and advertisers alike by boosting engagement.

"I think the best news is free speech and mitigation of harmful or dangerous content remains the primary focus of this maturing program, and Meta has taken a forward position here," said John Donahue, founder of the digital media consultancy Up and to the Right.

Mike Zaneis of the ad initiative the Trustworthy Accountability Group said Meta's announcement should be seen as an evolution of the platform's brand-safety standards and not a retreat from protecting users and marketers.

"The speed and accuracy of the Community Notes tool is impressive and it's the increased transparency that makes a fundamental difference for users and marketers alike," Zeneis said of X's implementation of the concept so far. "If something seems to be working, we shouldn't discourage others from adopting the approach just because it hasn't been precisely tested."

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Instagram has shut down a program that paid creators for ads placed on their profiles

Instagram app logo in front of a purple background and dollar signs

Instagram, Tyler Le/Instagram

  • Instagram has shut down a program that paid creators for ads placed on their profiles.
  • Meta began testing the program in 2022.
  • Instagram has launched several creator-monetization tests since 2020 β€” and some haven't survived.

Instagram has ended a program that allowed creators to earn money from ads placed between content on their profiles, the company confirmed to Business Insider.

The Meta-owned platform began testing the program with US creators in 2022 and expanded it in 2024 to eligible profiles in Canada, South Korea, Japan, and Australia.

Meta will continue to place ads in between content on nonteen public Instagram profiles. Businesses will still be able to prevent their ads from running on specific profiles.

According to court documents filed in 2024, Instagram has generated billions in ad revenue for Meta. In 2022, when the platform began testing the ads-in-profile program, it generated $16.5 billion, the same court filing said.

This isn't the first creator-monetization program that Meta has tested and shuttered.

Other programs you may remember include:

  • IGTV (Instagram's now defunct YouTube competitor) shared ad revenue with creators from 2020 to 2022.
  • Instagram briefly had a native affiliate program between 2021 and 2022 that allowed creators to earn revenue from shopping tags on their posts.

The Instagram Reels Bonus, which paid creators a sum of money based on how their reels performed, was paused in 2023. It was reintroduced in 2024 as a series of limited-time bonuses.

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Why 'neo-medievalism' could be a hot consumer trend in 2025

Chappell Roan wearing chainmail at the MTV Video Music Awards.
"Hot to Go" singer Chappell Roan embraced the neo-medievalism trend at September's MTV Music Video Awards.

Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for MTV

  • "Neo-medievalism" is emerging as a consumer trend, according to creative agency Wonderhood Studios.
  • The trend embraces medieval aesthetics and reflects a rejection of modern tech culture.
  • Fashion, home decor, and mead sales are key areas influenced by neo-medievalism, per Wonderhood.

With Brat Summer fading further into the rearview mirror, it's time to look ahead to the next consumer trend set to sweep the internet. You might want to prepare yourself for a year of "neo-medievalism."

That's the key takeaway from a new report by Wonderhood Studios, a UK-based creative agency and production company. Wonderhood examines data from social media, Google Ngram, and other sources to produce an annual consumer trends predictions report for its marketer clients.

"The future is medieval," Jack Colchester, the head of data and insight at Wonderhood, wrote in the report.

Think cloaks and blacksmithing, all washed down with lashings of mead, the ancient honey-based alcoholic drink.

Colchester said the medieval trend taps into two prevailing consumer attitudes: A lust for nostalgia and the renunciation of an always-online culture.

"Neo-medievalism is the embrace of all things medieval in the face of growing rejection of modern tech-centric culture," Colchester wrote.

A growing embrace of Gothic and medieval fashion

Camila Cabello
Camila Cabello wore a Gothic gown and matching veil to the 2024 VMAs.

Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

There were hat-tips to medieval fashion on runways and major entertainment events last year that hint at the growing trend, Colchester said.

Take the MTV VMAs in September, where singer Camila Cabello donned a veil while fellow pop star Chappell Roan fashioned a sword as an accessory and later appeared in an outfit entirely made from chainmail. Elsewhere in September, actor Natalie Portman wore a chainmail-inspired Dior dress to the Deauville Film Festival.

In a similar vein, Pinterest predicted last month that "castlecore" would be a big trend for 2025, particularly in home dΓ©cor and fashion.

Analysis of English-language Pinterest searches between September 2022 and August 2024 found a 110% lift in search volume for "medieval core," while searches for "chainmail necklace" and "castle house plans" were both up 45%, respectively.

Colchester said "Bardcore," referring to medieval-style music, has also steadily grown in popularity on TikTok in recent years. Speaking to this trend, the tech company Teenage Engineering last year released a beat machine that includes a library of hundreds of built-in medieval sounds, such as bowed harps, bagpipes, and frame drums, and effects like swords clashing and arrows flying.

The rise of mead

Mead is also having a moment, popularized by TV shows like "Game of Thrones" and with a growing number of commercial meaderies opening in the US.

Global sales of mead are set to grow from $592 million in 2024 to $1.4 billion by 2032, according to the market research company Fortune Business Insights. A separate report, from the market research company Technavio, had an even rosier outlook, estimating the global mead market would grow by $2.7 billion between 2024 and 2028.

In its report, Wonderhood also cited Google Ngram data, which explores language usage trends within books and other published materials, that suggests interest in mead is at its highest since 1887.

Gosnells mead
Mead is having a moment.

Gosnells

Colchester said mead fits into several trends among younger consumers.

"It's lower alcohol, chemical free, has loads of taste, and it's sustainable and helps bees," Colchester said.

Colchester said that the "neo-medievalism" trends β€” while somewhat tongue-in-cheek β€” point to consumers rejecting what he describes as hyper-modernity and pristine sameness.

"The creative benchmark in 2025 will be: get to places AI couldn't," Colchester said.

"In a tidal wave of algorithmic mediocrity overwhelming the internet, the only way to stand out is to embrace being an unashamed attention seeker β€” and boldly step into your neo-medieval jester era," he added.

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Ad industry insiders break down the M&A deals they think could shake up the industry in 2025

Mark Read WPP
Industry insiders think WPP, led by CEO Mark Read, will look to buy and sell assets in the wake of the Omnicom-IPG merger.

WPP

  • Ad industry M&A activity is expected to surge in 2025.
  • Key areas of interest include retail media, streaming TV, influencer marketing, and AI.
  • Insiders think companies like Accenture, AppLovin, and The Trade Desk could be active acquirers.

Bankers and M&A advisors say advertising and marketing acquisition deal flow picked up in the second half of 2024 after a slow start, and they're expecting a flurry of activity in the new year.

"It feels like the tide has turned," said William Ritchie, the managing director of the M&A advisory firm WY Partners.

Some in the industry told Business Insider they thought Omnicom's planned $13.25 billion deal to buy Interpublic Group would be a lightning rod for further ad industry M&A in 2025.

Key areas of buyer interest include the fast-growing retail media and streaming TV sectors, influencer marketing, and the implementation of data and AI. Industry insiders said private-equity buyers would also most likely remain active.

"Everyone is looking for the glue that ties together some of the components," said Charles Ping, a managing director of the Winterberry Group management consultancy.

BI talked to about a dozen advertising, marketing, and adtech industry executives, investors, bankers, and advisors, who speculated about the deals they think could happen in 2025 and beyond. Some of the people were granted anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Accenture could go revenge shopping

Matt Lacey, a partner at the M&A advisory group Waypoint Partners, said the combination of Omnicom and IPG may leave Accenture feeling vulnerable. Its Accenture Song creative marketing group could look to acquire a new asset in areas like data and media, "where it has limited capabilities," he said.

Brian Wieser, an analyst at Madison and Wall, wrote in a recent note to clients that Accenture Song was arguably the "world's largest marketing services business" β€” at least until Omnicom and IPG come together. Wieser noted that it marked "high single-digit growth" in its most recent quarter, faster growth than its agency-holding-company peers.

Accenture has been a consistently active acquirer of advertising and marketing businesses in recent years. In April it acquired the customer-engagement agency Unlimited to boost its customer-relationship-management offering. In June it bought the Brazilian creative agency Soko.

David Droga, CEO of Accenture Interactive.
David Droga, the CEO of Accenture Song, is expected to be an active acquirer again in 2025.

John Lamparski/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York

Another area of interest for Accenture Song is experiential marketing, a person familiar with its strategy told BI.

"Experiential is going to be hot in 2025," this person said. "The sheer fact that people are coming out and younger generations don't just want to be in a digital world, they want social connections. You can do a significant amount of innovation in the integration between tech and real-world settings."

AppLovin could swoop in for deals while its stock is riding high

"Everyone is looking at AppLovin," said Alex Iosilevich, a partner at Alignment Growth, which invests in media and entertainment companies. "The expectation is they'll be acquisitive."

AppLovin's stock has been soaring, and it's been trading at a market value above $100 billion. Investors have been wowed by its move into e-commerce, which has opened up a new and lucrative pool of advertisers beyond its mobile-gaming roots.

While AppLovin's executives have said M&A isn't part of the company's near-term growth strategy, that hasn't stopped industry insiders from speculating about its next move.

AppLovin IPO
AppLovin, which went public in April 2021, is expected to use its recent stock-market tear to its advantage.

Nasdaq

"I think they should buy someone like Snapchat and get a foothold in the social space," said Alex Merutka, a former early AppLovin employee who's now the CEO of the adtech company Craftsman+.

Other ad industry insiders said AppLovin could further expand into connected TV, adding to its 2022 acquisition of Wurl, a company that helps publishers distribute and monetize their video content on TV screens.

Connected TV presents a "massive area to unlock SMB budgets to play in TV ads," said Tom Triscari, the CEO of the programmatic-advertising advisory firm Lemonade Projects.

Criteo could be bought or go shopping itself β€” or both

Criteo has long been the subject of takeover speculation. Reuters reported in early 2023 that the company had appointed the investment bank Evercore to explore its strategic options.

News that Criteo's CEO, Megan Clarken, plans to exit the company next year also fueled rumors that a sale could be in the cards. Digiday listed The Trade Desk, Microsoft, Walmart, Publicis Groupe, and WPP's GroupM as logical suitors.

Megan Clarken, CEO of Criteo
Megan Clarken, the CEO of Criteo, plans to exit the company next year.

Criteo

Triscari said it could be equally possible that Criteo itself makes a transformative acquisition.

"Criteo has retail media, the second-best shopper dataset to Amazon, and better adtech than Amazon," Triscari said. "All they need is an access point to CTV inventory. Very doable with some creative options out there."

Criteo might also want to double down on retail-media tech. Digiday reported this summer that Criteo had been in talks to acquire Skai, a marketing platform that specializes in retail search advertising, among other things. The Israeli news site Calcalist reported this month that Skai recently laid off 80 employees, which could signal that the company is preparing for a sale.

Havas listing could spur deals

The French advertising group Havas listed on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam this month, separating from its parent company, Vivendi.

Havas has said it will continue taking a "disciplined approach to acquisitions," with a plan to target high-growth markets and areas like data analytics, digital transformation, and AI.

"They look at everything right now," Ritchie, of WY Partners, said.

Yannick Bollore of Havas in a suit
Yannick BollorΓ©, the CEO of Havas, has said the French ad firm wants to make more acquisitions following its recent stock-market listing.

Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Getty Images

Havas had a busy 2024 with the acquisitions of the data firm DMPG, the B2B marketing company Ledger Bennett, the Australian media agency Hotglue, and the social-media agency Wilderness, among others.

IAS could get taken private

BI reported last month that KKR and other private-equity buyers were weighing a deal to acquire the publicly traded ad-verification firm Integral Ad Science. KKR and IAS declined to comment at the time.

Bloomberg first reported that IAS had appointed the investment bank Jefferies to explore its options after receiving inbound takeover interest.

A take-private deal could help IAS grow further without the quarterly Wall Street scrutiny.

Lisa Utzschneider Integral Ad Science
IAS, led by CEO Lisa Utzschneider, has been fielding inbound interest from private-equity firms.

Integral Ad Science

Speaking generally about the adtech industry, Ping, of Winterberry, said, "There are many companies that don't have access to the capital that they imagined they would when they listed, and it's hampering their growth, particularly if they have a global outlook."

He added that take-private deals could unlock new capital while offering some value back to shareholders. Ping pointed to Mediaocean's $500 million acquisition of the CTV advertising and analytics firm Innovid and to the advanced-TV ad company Cadent's $324 million acquisition of the performance marketing company AdTheorent as recent examples of this trend.

PE-backed independent agency groups could make big moves

Jay Pattisall, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, said the consolidation of Omnicom and IPG could open up more opportunities for private-equity-backed independent ad agencies like Dept, Horizon Media, PMG, Tinuiti, and Wpromote.

"Anticipate more growth in independents' innovation investments and more focus in their proposition to compete with the global consolidation of marketing scale at Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP," Pattisall wrote in a recent blog post.

According to the advisory firm SI Partners, private-equity and private-equity-backed transactions were responsible for about a third of deal volume in the agencies, consultancies, and technology-service-provider sectors in the year to mid-November.

dept dimi
The Netherlands-based digital ad agency Dept, led by Dimi Albers, is expected to be on the hunt for further investment next year.

Dept

Some might seek new investors, given where they are in their private-equity investment life cycles.

Dept, which sold a majority stake to Carlyle Group in 2020, is expected to be in the market for a new investor next year, industry sources told BI.

The US media agency Horizon Media could also be in play, since Temasek, the investment firm that bought a minority share in 2021, will want an exit at some point, said Dave Morgan, the executive chairman of the TV-ad-buying company Simulmedia. Last month Horizon added a full-service creative agency to its ranks, hinting at ambitions to become a bigger global network.

Talent agencies like CAA, Wasserman, and UTA will be jockeying for influencer experts

M&A insiders said talent agencies were gearing up to make deals to broaden their offerings beyond traditional talent management.

Influencer specialists are at the top of their shopping lists, these people said.

"You have this melding β€” where does influencer live in the context of things like TikTok Shop or Instagram?" said Bob Morris, a managing partner of the M&A advisory firm Bravery Group. "We hear over and over that talent agencies are looking for different models and sets of mechanics."

Jeremy Zimmer at the Variety Cannes Lions Studio on June 20, 2023 in Cannes, France.
Talent agencies like UTA, led by Jeremy Zimmer, are expected to look for bolt-ons in areas like influencer marketing and data.

Vianney Tisseau/Variety via Getty Images

Talent agencies are also looking to become more data-centric to identify which influencers drive sales, Morris said. Adobe Analytics said influencers and other affiliate marketers drove about 20% of US Cyber Monday e-commerce revenue this year.

There are plenty of interesting targets on the market. In 2024, 17 creator-focused startups raised at least $10 million in new funding, totaling over $900 million.

Could The Trade Desk buy Roku?

The Trade Desk this year announced a coming connected-TV operating system called Ventura, which it said was designed to make the buying and selling of streaming TV ads more efficient.

Ahead of the launch, The Trade Desk's CEO, Jeff Green, batted off speculation that it planned to rival Roku, saying it wanted to continue to partner and not compete with the TV platform.

The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green
The Trade Desk, led by Jeff Green, hasn't been an active acquirer. Could that change in 2025?

Greg Doherty/Variety via Getty Images

In separate notes to investors, analysts at Guggenheim and Needham said they thought it was likely that The Trade Desk could eventually acquire Roku to advance its TV ambitions.

"It's almost impossible to build these" TV platforms now, the Needham analyst Laura Martin said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. Roku has 85 million homes watching four hours of TV a day on average, which would open up a large engaged audience and lots of first-party data to The Trade Desk's advertisers.

All eyes are on WPP's next move

WPP was already licking its wounds after Publicis Groupe hired Snoop Dogg to help promote that it had become the world's largest advertising holding company. The coming together of the third- and fourth-biggest firms, Omnicom and IPG, is set to push WPP further down the pile.

"It will put even more pressure on Mark Read," WPP's CEO, said David Jones, the CEO of a rival ad firm, The Brandtech Group. "And it will bring renewed interest from the investor community."

WPP insiders and observers had speculated for more than a year that the company might be taken private by a private-equity firm or that it might announce its own merger with another holding company.

But some industry insiders now think it's more likely that divestitures are in the cards.

"I think WPP is too big of a buy to go private, but I think they will have a divestiture plan that they are going to execute on in areas that are not high performing and not sexy enough for the public markets," said Andreas Roell, the CEO of Evros Group, which advises on media deals. Case in point: WPP in August sold its majority stake in FGS Global to the private-equity firm KKR in a deal that valued the public-affairs and communications group at $1.7 billion.

AdAge reported that in a recent memo to employees, Read described the Omnicom-IPG deal as "good news" for WPP, adding that WPP would double down on its strategy around creativity, data, AI, and tech "while our peers are distracted and turning inward."

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AppLovin has rocketed to a $100 billion valuation. Some industry insiders are skeptical its run can last.

Photo collage of the CEO of Applovin' Adam Foroughi
AppLovin, led by CEO Adam Foroughi, has rocketed to an over-$100-billion valuation, fueled by a recent push into e-commerce ads.

Adam Foroughi/Applovin, Tyler Le/BI

  • Wall Street has fallen in love with the mobile adtech and gaming company AppLovin.
  • AppLovin's recent push into e-commerce sent its market valuation over the $100 billion milestone.
  • Some ad industry insiders question the sustainability of its run, however.

Shares in the mobile ads and gaming company AppLovin have been running wild β€” and advertising industry insiders have a lot of questions.

AppLovin entered the Nasdaq 100 in November, with its market value surpassing the $100 billion milestone and shares up more than 780% so far this year. It's a remarkable ascent for any company, but especially for one that had flown fairly under the radar until recently, even within the ad industry itself.

At its current valuation, AppLovin dwarfs even The Trade Desk, long considered adtech's star performer, which has a market capitalization of around $65 billion.

AppLovin β€” which helps app developers make money through advertising and find new users through ads β€” has grown its share to 42% of the mobile gaming market, per analysts at Piper Sandler.

But there's one key new development that's driving its stunning stock run: e-commerce.

Bullish analysts say AppLovin has room to grow further and do for e-commerce marketers what it has for gaming companies, taking on Meta in the process.

"In all my years, it's the best product I've ever seen released by us, fastest growing, but it's still in pilot," AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi said of the company's new e-commerce product on an earnings call last month.

With its stock riding high, some industry insiders also think AppLovin could make a transformative acquisition that would make it a household name.

Still, others in the ad industry say AppLovin's business model deserves some skepticism amid its meteoric rise.

22V Research analyst John Roque wrote in a recent note that AppLovin was the most overbought stock in the Russell 3000.

AppLovin declined to comment on a list of detailed questions about its business.

Investor enthusiasm goes stratospheric

Wall Street's interest in AppLovin soared this year as the company unveiled a plan to go after a new target customer outside the mobile gaming community: e-commerce advertisers.

The move opened up a total addressable ad revenue opportunity of around $120 billion, two to three times the size of the $40 to $50 billion mobile games user acquisition market, according to Macquarie Equity senior analyst Tim Nollen.

Nollen recently raised the firm's target share price for AppLovin to $450 from $270, citing its e-commerce push.

Jones Road Miracle Balm on a white background.
Jones Road Beauty has been an early tester of AppLovin's e-commerce advertising offering.

Jones Road

Cody Pfloker, chief marketing and revenue officer for Jones Road Beauty, which is testing AppLovin, said direct-to-consumer advertisers are excited by the prospect of a new player in the market.

"Meta has been the dominant customer acquisition channel for brands and while other platforms have come up like TikTok a few years ago, none are either as efficient or scalable," Pfloker said. "Nothing has been able to dethrone Meta."

AppLovin says it can reach a potential audience of 1.4 billion daily active users across mobile apps and connected-TV devices β€” an audience comparable to Meta or Google's apps.

Pfloker said part of the appeal is that e-commerce advertisers can easily repurpose their Meta ads into ads for AppLovin's mobile games and other apps.

AppLovin is only inviting e-commerce advertisers that spend upward of $20,000 a day on Meta ads to try its product, and it's incentivizing some of those buyers with $10,000 ad credits, multiple industry insiders told BI. They, like some others in this story, requested anonymity to preserve business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Prescient AI, a marketing measurement company, ran an analysis in October that found AppLovin delivered a 1.5 times higher return on ad spend for its customers than Meta and Google Adwords, on average.

"A pretty startling thing is happening," said Will Holtz, VP of strategy and operations at Prescient AI. The top spenders are spending 25% to 30% of their budgets on AppLovin, he said, something Prescient hasn't seen before on a new channel, except for something like TV where people bulk up spending over the holidays.

What's more, Holtz added: "They're spending incremental dollars; they're not just shifting budget away from channels like Meta."

It's worth noting that the ads are full-screen and can't be skipped, which also likely boosts some performance metrics compared to other platforms. The results are also early and could fluctuate as more advertisers come on board.

Out-Googling Google

Despite the enthusiasm from some customers, others in the digital ad community have raised concerns about AppLovin.

Some industry insiders attribute AppLovin's performance to its cornering of every part of the mobile app ad transaction.

AppLovin operates AppDiscovery, the technology that advertisers use to buy the ads; the MAX mediation technology developers use to sell their ads; and the ALX exchange that connects the two. It also has Adjust, its ad measurement platform, and AXON, an AI engine designed to improve the performance of its ads.

AppLovin HQ
AppLovin, whose Palo Alto HQ is pictured here, grew annual revenue by 17% to $3.3 billion last year.

AppLovin

This could give AppLovin a unique view of the market and allow it to see what different advertisers and buying platforms are bidding. Theoretically, AppLovin could use this intelligence to refine its own ad bidding strategies.

"It's one company for monetizing your app, growing your userbase, and then grading its own homework," a mobile ad veteran told BI. "They say there's a firewall and 'we don't talk,' but it's hard to prove otherwise."

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's similar to how people often describe the approach that helped Google dominate advertising on the web. A judge in Google's adtech antitrust trial is currently weighing whether that strategy, as well as its use of other auction tactics, amounted to Google operating an illegal monopoly. Google denies this and has said the adtech market is fiercely competitive and that its innovations have brought benefits to consumers, publishers, and advertisers.

Jeromy Sonne, the founder of marketing AI technology company Simbiant, has been monitoring the early AppLovin e-commerce results.

He said he'd seen an "extremely high correlation" between when AppLovin sees a spike in conversions and when Meta sees an increase in ad spend. He said he hadn't seen a similar trend when comparing Meta and Google or AppLovin and Google.

He said that made him wonder if AppLovin was driving real incremental value or whether its campaigns were just reaching the exact same audience as Meta in some way.

He said he'd also seen a "concerning overlap" where Shopify sales purportedly driven by AppLovin have a very high geographic overlap with where Meta ad website traffic was coming from.

Separately, Prescient AI's analysis found that brands spending between 25% to 30% of their digital ad budgets on AppLovin acquired fewer incremental new customers than brands in the 5% to 10% range. While reacquiring some old customers isn't necessarily a bad thing, the finding raises questions about the appropriate level of spending advertisers should devote to AppLovin, Prescient AI's Holtz said.

Other advertisers have questioned why AppLovin doesn't share granular data about exactly where their ads ran.

"It's a little bit of a black box β€” we have no idea where our ads are appearing," Pfloker said of AppLovin. "There's a lot to be excited about, but there's a lot to be skeptical about."

Could AppLovin become SnapLovin?

AppLovin recently paid more than $150 million to add developer Zynga's portfolio of games to its MAX ad exchange as part of Zynga's divestment of its adtech platform Chartboost, three people familiar with the matter told BI. This boosted AppLovin's already huge audience of gamers.

A spokesperson for Zynga owner Take-Two declined to comment.

Player avatars from Zynga's FarmVille 2 are seen on a stairway at the entrance to Zynga headquarters in San Francisco, California April 23, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
AppLovin recently signed Zynga's portfolio of games, such as Farmville 2, onto its MAX ad exchange.

Thomson Reuters

Some in the industry think AppLovin could make an even bigger move. The company recently sold $3.5 billion in bonds, which Bloomberg reported were to pay down debt "and for general corporate purposes."

Could that include an acquisition?

Alex Merutka, an early AppLovin employee who now runs his own digital marketing company, Craftsman+, thinks AppLovin should make a bid for a social network β€” a particularly valuable sector of apps because users tend to be logged in, visit often, and share useful data.

People who use mobile games don't usually hand over data like phone numbers or email addresses, vital pieces of information for marketers to help connect their ads to outcomes, and to retarget users with ads.

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi
AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi is currently positioned at No. 216 on the Bloomberg Billionaires list.

AppLovin

AppLovin is already trading at a larger market capitalization than Snap, Pinterest, and Reddit combined.

Years ago, Snap held informal, early-stage talks about potentially acquiring AppLovin, a person familiar with the matter told BI.

Perhaps the roles could be reversed this time around. While Snap posted a revenue growth bounceback in its latest quarter, it's struggled to keep momentum amid fierce competition from the likes of TikTok. AppLovin could theoretically help optimize Snap's ad platform for performance advertisers to better compete with Google and Meta.

"If Adam was in control, Snap could be a $100 billion business β€” a $200 billion, $300 billion company β€” and AppLovin would be stronger too," Merutka said, referring to AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi. "There's a lot of opportunity there."

However, AppLovin execs said onstage at the Nasdaq Investor Conference earlier this month that M&A wasn't a near-term priority and that the company was keeping a close eye on its head count and margins.

"It's much harder than people realize, and it's exceptionally hard for a company that's structured like us," Foroughi said of M&A and the difficulty of absorbing different company cultures, according to a transcript provided by the market intelligence platform AlphaSense.

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After the Omnicom-IPG merger, these are the ad M&A deals industry insiders think could be next

John Wren
Omnicom CEO John Wren.

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

  • Ad industry insiders say the Omnicom takeover of Interpublic Group could kick off more M&A.
  • Insiders laid out who could be involved, from WPP to smaller holding companies.
  • Private equity and global solutions providers like Accenture also could be consolidators.

The planned $13.25 billion takeover by ad holding company Omnicom of Interpublic Group by merger has industry insiders speculating: Who's next?

Other agency giants face similar conditions that led two of the six big ad-holding companies to seek a merger. There's the concentration of ad dollars with tech giants Google, Meta, and Amazon; the need for media-buying scale to maintain an edge with global advertisers; and the growing use of AI that threatens to wipe out certain agency tasks. The US ad industry has barely grown over the past few years. By combining, Omnicom and IPG are looking to ensure their continued survival.

Some industry insiders think the Omnicom-IPG tie-up is just the start of a massive reordering of the $70 billion ad agency industry and that it's only a matter of time before other holding companies are forced to acquire or be acquired as they look to bulk up.

"From an M&A perspective, it's only going to add fuel to the fire," said William Ritchie, founding and managing director of the media and technology advisory firm WY Partners. "As others vie for competitive advantage over the newly crowned world's largest holding company, I'd expect there is going to be more competition for the best assets and more focus on building a streamlined data and tech-first offering which can compete β€” notably with companies like WPP, which remains behind the curve on competitive advantage here."

Ritchie said he sees continuing interest in assets that specialize in using data, tech, and AI to inform advertising, as well as PR and communications companies. He noted KKR's recent move to increase its stake in FGS Global, a comms and public affairs firm.

The IPG-Omnicom combo will spark more consolidation for other reasons, said Andreas Roell, CEO of Evros Group, which advises on media, marketing, entertainment, and tech deals. Once the new group decides what it wants to be known for, it may discard the units that don't fit that new identity and also divest some agencies that have competing clients or culture clashes.

Other networks will have to look in the mirror and decide if they're strong enough to acquire weaker networks or acknowledge they're falling behind due to tech disruption, Roell added.

"My prediction is that 2025 will serve as a reckoning year for networks," he said.

Other holding companies could partner up

Starting at the top of the food chain, some industry insiders think the upheaval could force two other longtime rivals to come together: French ad-holding company Publicis Groupe, which has been outperforming its competitors lately, and London-based WPP.

"Mark Read has not done the job that he probably expected he would be able to do; [Arthur] Sadoun is doing a great job," Tom Triscari, CEO and founder of Lemonade Projects, a programmatic ad agency, said of WPP's and Publicis' leaders, respectively.

Such a combo might be tricky to align culturally, though. A proposed merger between Publicis Groupe and Omnicom famously broke down in 2014 after they failed to agree on multiple fronts, including which agency would be seen as the acquirer and who would be appointed chief financial officer. It would also need to pass regulatory muster. That could be harder to do if the IPG and Omnicom deal succeeds, reducing the number of big agency groups in the sector. And there would be so much complexity that Publicis might not see the upside.

Another top holding company that could be active is Havas. Its parent, France's Vivendi, just approved its split into four companies. This is set to lead to Havas being publicly traded as its own company. Havas has indicated that it has M&A in its sights.

A number of other smaller, independent ad-holding companies could help bigger players scale up, like Mark Penn's Stagwell, the Bill Koenigsberg-led Horizon Media, or the Martin Sorrell-founded S4 Capital.

David Morgan, executive chairman of TV ad-buying company Simulmedia, said Horizon Media could be in play since Temasek, the investment firm that bought a minority share in 2021, needs an exit at some point.

Digital performance shops like PMG and Kepler also could be of interest.

Private equity has been circling

The big holding companies could also be a target for private-equity giants. Apollo, KKR, and Blackstone have shown interest in media and entertainment. Industry insiders have speculated for months that WPP, which once ranked as No. 1 among agency businesses, could be taken private β€” or at least some parts of it could be.

"They all see the same thing β€” these assets are bloated and mismanaged," said an industry player who's had conversations with PE firms. They asked for anonymity to preserve business relationships. Their identity is known to BI.

Another group of potential acquirers is companies like IBM and Capgemini, which provide a range of business solutions. Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture Song have eyed ad agencies as a way to offer end-to-end services to clients. Tata was in talks to buy R/GA this year and Accenture acquired creative agency Droga5 in 2019.

When it comes to deals that are just about getting bigger, though, there's plenty of skepticism that bulking up will solve the problems agencies face.

"Agencies today are not losing to the tech giants because of a shift in power," said Jay Friedman, CEO of the Goodway Group, a brand consulting firm. "They're losing because the capabilities they have aren't fit for how brands need to buy advertising today. They need a better cost model overall, which is global and AI-driven."

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What the Omnicom-IPG deal means for workers across the global ad industry

Omnicom John Wren IPG Philippe Krakowksy
Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG Philippe Krakowsky announced on Monday the merger of their companies. Wren will continue to lead the new, larger Omnicom.

Omnicom

  • The Omnicom-IPG mega-merger will create waves across the ad industry.
  • Mergers are highly disruptive in the short term, and opportunistic rivals could pounce.
  • Ad industry workers should expect concerned clients and bruised egos as the two companies combine.

A coming mega-merger is set to make waves across the advertising world, especially among the millions of people employed by ad agencies globally.

On Monday, Omnicom announced a $13 billion agreement to acquire fellow US advertising agency business Interpublic Group. The deal would create the world's largest advertising agency holding company.

Industry insiders shared their thoughts with Business Insider on how the merger could impact individual workers at Omnicom and IPG, as well as in the industry at large. They said ad industry workers should expect disruption like job cuts and opportunistic rivals swooping in for concerned clients as the new Omnicom takes shape.

Prepare for job cuts

As with many horizontal mergers, job cuts seem inevitable.

Omnicom said Monday the transaction would "generate $750 million in annual cost synergies" as it consolidates its operations with IPG.

Steve Boehler, the founder of marketing and management consulting company Mercer Island Group, predicted in a LinkedIn post that "thousands" of people would lose their jobs.

Job security in the ad agency world has been increasingly hard to come by. Agencies often lay off entire teams when they lose a major client. US advertising, PR, and related services employment fell by 300 jobs to 522,900 in November, despite overall US employment rebounding, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

AI could also negatively impact the advertising job market. The research firm Forrester said last year that the rise of automation could lead to the loss of 32,000 jobs within ad agencies by 2030, about 7.5% of the total worldwide agency workforce.

Expect short-term merger turbulence and questions from clients

Merging two companies with 100,000 people, dozens of different agency brands, and hundreds of offices across the globe will not be a simple task.

"It's a massive integration risk," said Martin Sorrell, the executive chair of rival agency S4 Capital, who led WPP for more than 30 years. Sorrell has been an active acquirer of businesses throughout his career.

The companies could also dispose of assets. IPG announced recently that it would sell its digital ad agency Huge to a private equity firm and had said earlier this year it was also looking to offload R/GA, the agency famed for its work for Nike. IPG said the companies would continue to act independently until the deal closes and that during that time they would continue advancing strategic plans that had previously been announced.

Some clients will also have questions, particularly if the combination means their agency is working for one of their direct rivals.

On a call with analysts on Monday, Omnicom CEO John Wren downplayed the threat of client conflicts.

"Are there clients that we have to sit in the coming weeks and months and assure them that we still love them quite as much as we did prior to this morning? Yes." Wren said. "But clients are what drive us every morning when we wake up."

Egos will be bruised

A proposed merger between Omnicom and Publicis Groupe memorably failed in 2014 after the two companies couldn't agree on which executives should hold key positions, such as the CEO role.

Omnicom and Publicis leaders John Wren and Maurice Levy
John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy couldn't find a way to combine their companies that both sides agreed on. The proposed Omnicom-Publicis deal fell apart in 2014.

Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

While the Omnicom-IPG deal appears more straightforward, there will be some humbling as the company looks to reduce duplicative roles and some execs are looked over for the top roles.

On Monday's call, Wren said he wasn't worried about senior people looking to change their careers as a result of the merger.

If you're in one of these roles, you are in demand

Omnicom and IPG executives on Monday talked up the potential for combining their technology platforms, the use of data and analytics, and disciplines like media trading and customer-relationship management.

"Superstar creators and creatives will also be in demand, as well as good strategists, in all disciplines," said Simon Francis, CEO of marketing consultancy Flock Associates. "But, lots of other roles will become diminished."

Jay Wilson, VP and analyst for the research company Gartner, said job candidates looking to strengthen their rΓ©sumΓ©s should consider that high-performing brands are looking for strong performers in areas like business strategy, strategic thinking, and data analysis.

"Advertising and marketing workers certainly need to upskill on Gen-AI skills as well," Wilson said.

Smaller independent agencies could benefit

As Omnicom and IPG work through the merger, there will be opportunities for rival agencies to pounce.

"Competitors will decide to target you and go through all your clients and your best staff, it's inevitable," a former Publicis Groupe exec said Monday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect career prospects. Their identity is known to BI.

Nimble independent agencies that aren't encumbered with legacy businesses could offer good career opportunities for people who don't want to deal with the complexity of a giant network.

"Certain people will make life or business-style decisions to say, 'God, I don't want to be in this oil tanker and I'd rather jump into a speed boat,'" said a former WPP veteran, who asked not to be named in order to protect their business relationships. Their identity is known to BI.

With fewer big holding companies to choose between, consolidation could drive up prices for clients, which could also present more opportunities for smaller rivals to undercut the incumbents on fees, the WPP veteran added.

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The $13 billion Omnicom-IPG megamerger reflects a new era as Big Tech and AI upend the ad industry

John Wren Omnicom
Omnicom CEO John Wren.

Getty Images

  • A $13.25 billion merger of Omnicom and Interpublic Group would create the largest ad-agency company.
  • Industry insiders say the deal reflects an ad sector under threat from Big Tech and AI.
  • A bigger company could have more leverage to make deals, but job cuts seem inevitable.

For ad-industry insiders, the US ad giant Omnicom's proposed takeover of its rival Interpublic Group represents the consolidation of a challenged sector and shows that the future of advertising will be rooted in data and AI.

Being big matters as the industry wrestles with disruption from the might of Big Tech players and the advent of artificial intelligence. While AI could make offerings more efficient, it also threatens to displace many ad-agency services and affect the prices they can charge for them.

First reported on Sunday by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by the companies on Monday, the agreement would create a company with combined revenue of more than $25 billion, based on last year's figures. The $13.25 billion all-stock deal would merge Omnicom's creative and media-buying agencies, such as BBDO and Omnicom Media Group, with IPG's McCann Worldgroup and Mediabrands.

The combination would create an entity bigger than Publicis Groupe, which has the largest market capitalization in the sector. Analysts expect Publicis will end the year with the most revenue, too.

The French advertising company, the sector's star performer, has outpaced rivals thanks to its simple messaging about an integrated set of services and as multibillion-dollar acquisitions in areas like data, IT systems, and commerce began to bear fruit. It also came out of the gate on AI, launching its internal Marcel platform in 2018, before generative-AI hype.

The combined company seeks to get an edge in AI, data, and media buying

Omnicom-IPG will be hoping to knock Publicis off the top spot β€” and not just on paper. By creating a larger company, Omnicom-IPG would have a bigger base to deploy data or technology like AI, which could give it leverage to secure beneficial and exclusive deals with partners such as cloud providers.

"Technology and data and thereby data-driven marketing has been arguably the largest driver of differentiation and growth for agencies for some time now, and one of the benefits of additional scale is being able to leverage major technology investments over a larger base of operations," said Simon Nicholls, a partner at the advisory firm GP Bullhound, which works on mergers and acquisitions within the ad industry.

Some industry insiders say both Omnicom's and IPG's investments have lagged behind those of their competitors.

One rival minced no words.

"It's a merger of two drunkards leaning against the lamppost as far as AI is concerned," said Martin Sorrell, a former CEO of WPP who now leads the digital-marketing company S4 Capital.

The so-called IPG engine is powered by a nonexclusive partnership with Adobe GenStudio. Omnicom β€” whose Omni AI platform doesn't lock clients into the Omnicom ecosystem β€” hasn't offered as many specifics as its key rivals have about how much it's investing in proprietary AI.

Omnicom ArtBotAI user interface.
Omnicom offers an AI service called ArtBotAI as part of its Omni AI platform.

Omnicom

Still, the merger could benefit the pair in the future.

"This ushers in not just a new era of scale β€” it ushers in the opportunity to invest in where the marketplace is going, which is creative and tech powered by AI," said Laura Desmond, an ad-industry veteran who now leads the martech company Smartly.

Scale is also crucial in media planning and buying, the profit centers of many agency businesses. Generally, the more client ad budgets you control, the more leverage you have as an agency when it comes to negotiating deals with media owners.

Being bigger is also particularly important in the lucrative but often controversial practice of principal-based media buying, where agencies buy ad inventory in advance and sell it back in packages to clients. It's controversial because the agency doesn't disclose the price at which it originally bought the media to the advertiser. Agencies have defended the practice, saying that it still drives performance for brands β€” and that brands themselves are often pushing agencies for lower ad prices. A larger advertising agency would have a bigger market of clients to resell its ad inventory back to.

An opportunistic deal in a turbulent market

Some of the rationale behind the deal is opportunistic.

IPG has been trailing behind its rivals recently, having lost key client accounts like Amazon's media-buying business, General Motors, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, Omnicom's stock is at an all-time high.

IPG Phillipe Krakowsky
Philippe Krakowsky, IPG's CEO, will become a copresident and co-chief operating officer of Omnicom when the deal closes, Omnicom said.

ipg

"Wren is a wily old fox; he's no fool," Sorrell said, referring to Omnicom CEO John Wren's move to agree to the deal while Omnicom was on the upswing and IPG was floundering.

Omnicom said Wren would remain the company's CEO after the deal closes. The acquisition, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2025.

What the deal means for ad-agency jobs

The consolidation of the two companies is likely to lead to large synergies β€” including job cuts. Omnicom said on Monday that the transaction was expected to generate $750 million in annual cost savings. The research firm Forrester said last year that the rise of automation could lead to the loss of more than 30,000 jobs within ad agencies by 2030.

Simon Francis, an ad-agency veteran who now leads Flock Associates, a marketing consultancy and recruitment firm, predicted that in the ad-agency sector, "there will be even fewer big roles and lots and lots of junior roles."

"It will be harder to climb the career ladder," Francis added. "Superstar creators and creatives will also be in demand, as well as good strategists, in all disciplines. But lots of other roles will become diminished."

That could create opportunities for smaller agencies, especially as the merged company works its way through the disruption caused by integration, egos being knocked out of joint as roles combine, and client conflicts in which the new entity suddenly works with two or more fierce rivals in the same sector.

john wren maurice levy
Wren with Publicis Groupe's chairman, Maurice LΓ©vy, before the proposed merger of Publicis and Omnicom fell apart in 2014.

Getty Images/Spencer Platt

A proposed deal to merge Omnicom with Publicis Groupe a decade ago memorably fell apart after the pair couldn't agree on which executives would hold key positions, including chief financial officer.

"The lessons learned a decade ago are not going to be repeated," Wren said on a call with analysts on Monday morning.

Nimble independent agencies that aren't encumbered by legacy businesses could offer good career opportunities for people who don't want to deal with the complexity of a giant network. But industry insiders said it's probably not a good idea to bet on companies in the middle of the pack, especially for those working in in-demand specialties like data, tech integration, and commerce media.

"For the average worker, it's going to be all about scale," said Greg Paull, a principal of the R3 marketing consultancy. "Unless you are in a creative boutique like Wieden+Kennedy or Mother, the world's largest clients are going to seek out the world's largest holding companies."

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Omnicom takeover of Interpublic to create the world's biggest advertising group

John Wren, Omnicom Group
John Wren is CEO of Omnicom.

Omnicom Group

  • Omnicom is taking over the Interpublic Group to create the world's largest ad-agency business.
  • The deal is expected to generate annual cost savings of $750 million.
  • John Wren will remain CEO of Omnicom, while his counterpart Philippe Krakowsky will be co-COO.

Omnicom is taking over Interpublic Group in a deal expected to create the world's biggest advertising and marketing agency business, the US advertising company said on Monday.

The two had been in third and fourth place in the highly competitive ad-agency sector, but a combined entity would eclipse both London-based WPP and France's Publicis in terms of expected revenue and market capitalization.

Advertising industry insiders said the deal underscores the disruption faced by agency holding companies. Agencies face the dilemma of helping clients leverage tech while at the same time risking being displaced by AI and automation.

Industry insiders said the new company's added scale could bring benefits like the leverage to strike better deals with tech and media companies. It could also allow them to combine some offerings and eliminate duplicative roles. However, some industry insiders warned that merging the two companies could be highly disruptive in the short term, which could prompt their rivals to try to poach clients and key staffers.

Investors will receive 0.344 Omnicom shares for each IPG share they own. Omnicom shareholders will own 60.6% of the combined group. The deal is expected to generate annual cost savings of $750 million.

Omnicom was valued at about $20 billion at Friday's close. Its shares fell around 4% in early morning trading after the deal was officially confirmed. IPG was worth $10.9 billion at Friday's close, and its stock jumped by around 12% on Monday morning. The shares of competitor ad companies WPP and Publicis Groupe were also up following the Omnicom-IPG news.

The new Omnicom will have more than 100,000 staffers and offer services across media, precision marketing, customer relationship management, data, digital commerce, advertising, healthcare, public relations, and branding.

"Now is the perfect time to bring together our technologies, capabilities, talent and geographic footprints to bring clients superior, data-driven outcomes," John Wren, Omnicom CEO said in a statement on Monday.

Philippe Krakowsky, IPG's CEO, said the two companies had "highly complementary offerings, geographic presence, and cultures."

Wren will remain CEO of Omnicom, while Krakowsky and current Omnicom COO Daryl Simm will be copresidents and co-COOs of Omnicom. Three members of the IPG board, including Krakowsky, will join the Omnicom board.

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OpenWeb's ousted CEO who refused to quit speaks exclusively with BI about his battle with the board

Nadav Shoval, CEO of OpenWeb
Nadav Shoval was ousted as CEO of OpenWeb.

OpenWeb

  • OpenWeb's board ousted the company's founder and CEO, Nadav Shoval, earlier this year.
  • In his first interview since his removal, he said his situation is a cautionary tale for other founders.
  • A legal battle between Shoval and OpenWeb is ongoing in an Israeli court.

Nadav Shoval says the conflict that culminated in his dramatic ouster from OpenWeb, the company he cofounded, started with a disagreement over a prospective BlackRock investment.

In his first interview since his removal as CEO, which is still playing out in court, Shoval told Business Insider that tensions with OpenWeb's board bubbled up when the company received "several term sheets" for further investment in mid-2024, including an offer from BlackRock.

OpenWeb, which provides tech to publishers to help manage the comment sections of their sites, create newsletters, and sell advertising, had previously raised $392 million and was last valued at $1.5 billion.

BlackRock's capital infusion, Shoval said, would have been a "game changer," allowing the company to make its fourth acquisition and advance toward an initial public offering. But it hit a roadblock.

"We brought in some of the best bankers in the world to support the process, and everybody was very excited until we started to see that one of the board members, specifically, one of the funds, was really pushing against taking this money," Shoval said, without naming the fund.

Two people familiar with the discussions said some board members had concerns about the conditions tied to BlackRock's proposed investment. They asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations. Their identities are known to BI.

BlackRock declined to comment.

OpenWeb's big-name investors include Insight Partners and Georgian Partners. It has also attracted investments from Samsung's Next investment group, The New York Times, and the famed NYU Stern professor and podcaster Scott Galloway, who sits on the company's board.

Shoval's relationship with his board of directors went rapidly downhill from there β€” and was thrust into public view.

Shoval's messy battle with the board goes public

Tensions boiled over in mid-2024 when OpenWeb's board changed Shoval's reporting line, a move he felt breached his contract. He sent an ultimatum to reverse the change to the board, which responded by firing him.

Then the company announced to staffers that Shoval would be replaced with an interim CEO, OpenWeb's former chair Tim Harvey.

Shoval went on a rampage.

Cut off from his business accounts, he used his personal Gmail to send a companywide email saying that he refused to step down.

He also took to LinkedIn, writing: "I do not accept these actions. I will continue to fight for OpenWeb's mission and purpose alongside our team."

Nadav Shoval LinkedInPost
Shoval made his dispute with the OpenWeb board public in October by posting on LinkedIn.

Screenshot from LinkedIn

Two former colleagues of Shoval and four people who have worked closely with him described him as a force of nature who's extremely passionate about the publishing industry. They said he could also be hotheaded and sometimes lacked the willingness to listen to others, including the board. They declined to be named to protect business relationships. Their identities are known to BI.

In October, Shoval sued OpenWeb and many of its board members in a Tel Aviv, Israel, court, alleging he had been the victim of an illegal boardroom coup enacted so investors could seize control of the company. His complaint argued that he should be reinstated as CEO and able to appoint two new board directors of his choosing.

The litigation is ongoing, and OpenWeb is seeking to have the case dismissed. BI has reviewed copies of some of the related court filings, translated from Hebrew to English.

In denying Shoval's claim for a temporary injunction against his firing, Ariel Zimmerman, the Tel Aviv judge presiding over that case, said the chances of Shoval succeeding in his claim for reinstatement as CEO "do not appear promising, to say the least."

In response to Shoval's suit, OpenWeb said in court filings that the case was a classic situation in which the board of directors had lost confidence in its CEO. OpenWeb said Shoval was trying to extract money that was not owed to him and that he had chosen to give up control of the company when he brought in investors.

In a statement to BI, a spokesperson for OpenWeb said the company was excited about the steps it had taken to set it up for long-term success.

"The company is moving forward without distractions, fully committed to the success of our employees, partners, and the broader community we serve," the statement said.

Shoval told BI he's optimistic that "justice will come" as he continues his legal fight. He said he hoped his story would serve as a lesson to other founders to vet the funds and directors they work with closely.

"No one wants to see the behind the scenes of restaurants," Shoval said. "This is what I feel like I've seen about the VC industry."

Shoval's path to the New York startup scene

Shoval said he's used to defying the odds.

He often describes how he came close to death when he was 2 years old from Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that causes swelling of the blood vessels and can lead to heart problems.

The disease, Shoval said, affected his motor skills, making it difficult to write. He later struggled with dyslexia and didn't finish high school.

After serving in the Israel Defense Forces' elite Maglan commando unit β€” famed for going behind enemy lines β€” he moved to New York City in 2012 at the age of 21. There he cofounded OpenWeb, then known as Spot.IM, alongside two other cofounders who have since left the company.

Nadav Shoval on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt.
OpenWeb was founded in 2012 under the name Spot.IM.

Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch

Shoval said he had noticed that publishers and content creators were "under massive threat" from Big Tech companies that wouldn't compensate them for their content.

The startup sought to build tech to keep people more engaged on publishers' websites. It began with the comment section, providing community-management tools and analytics to help make online conversations less toxic. It later acquired three other companies to help publishers in other areas, like advertising and newsletter building.

OpenWeb grew to more than 370 employees and says it reaches more than 150 million active monthly users across sites such as Fox News, CNN, and Yahoo.

Through secondary transactions, as OpenWeb raised more capital, Shoval diluted his stake in the company, leaving him with less than 2% of issued shares and a remaining 5% in unvested options, per OpenWeb's legal filings.

The sales, which OpenWeb calculated earned Shoval tens of millions of dollars, resulted in him ceding his control of the company to its investors.

The board calls Shoval's bluff

Shoval said in legal filings that OpenWeb's sudden decision in mid-2024 to change his reporting line was an illegal move that hindered his management capabilities and diminished his role. The board had decided he would start reporting to a newly appointed temporary executive chair, Omer Cygler, the managing partner of its investor Lion Investment. Shoval had previously reported to the entire board.

Furious, he sent a letter in September to the board demanding it reverse the decision.

OpenWeb's legal filing said Shoval's letter had also set out "excessive and baseless financial demands" amounting to tens of millions of dollars in exchange for his continued appointment as its chief executive. In an attachment to his letter, Shoval mapped out a scenario where he would resign as CEO and help with the search for a replacement until summer 2025, on the condition that the investors bought his shares and accelerated the vesting of his options.

The board called his bluff.

Board members convened an urgent telephone meeting in which the directors who attended, including those appointed by Shoval himself β€” Galloway and Cygler β€” unanimously voted for his dismissal.

Scott Galloway Kara Swisher
Scott Galloway invested in OpenWeb in 2021.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In the statement to BI, OpenWeb said: "OpenWeb is laser-focused on continued growth and advancing our mission to foster healthier online discourse β€” creating a web that is safe for users, profitable for publishers, and fair for advertisers."

Shoval says his ousting is a cautionary tale for other startup founders

Looking forward, Shoval told BI he remained committed to fixing toxicity in online discourse and promoting independent journalism.

Shoval didn't start the company "for a small secondary," he said, referring to money he might have taken off the table were the company to raise a further investment round. "It's not a nonprofit. I'm here also for everybody to make money, but it's not the only reason why I started the business. I'm an extremely mission-driven person. I love what we do."

Nadav Shoval at TechCrunch Disrupt
Shoval onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in 2019.

Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch

Shoval maintains that OpenWeb board meetings and decisions were conducted improperly and that he still has the right to appoint two new board directors of his choosing.

He said that he wanted to impart a lesson to other founders: There can be some occasions in startups when "there is inherent conflict between the fund and the founder."

After the huge investment boom of 2021 amid a stock-market rally and low interest rates, many startup valuations plunged in the following years, and IPO and M&A activity dramatically slowed.

"When those funds are successful, they act like a cheerleader," Shoval said. "They agree with you. They follow your strategy. As soon as market conditions change β€” and it really, really changed β€” some of those people change."

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