Old-school advertising agency WPP has today moved to bolster its status in the social media space by acquiring an influencer marketing agency whose co-founder last year criticised the conglomerate’s digital strategy.
The marketing behemoth founded by Sir Martin Sorrell acquired Goat from private equity fund Inflexion for an undisclosed fee. Founded in 2015 and based in the Millbank Tower, Goat has organised campaigns for social media influencers to promote brands like Dell, Meta, Tesco and Uber.
“Influencer marketing is a key growth priority for the industry and for WPP,” WPP chief executive Mark Read said.
“Our clients are increasingly planning budgets at a global scale and require partners that have the global reach to help deliver, whilst driving engagement and impact at a local level.”
On an episode of podcast The Marketing Lab last year, Goat co-founder Arron Shepherd said WPP “may have missed social” and “haven’t quite worked out digital yet”, citing it as an example of an ad holding group “not doing that well”.
“The size of WPP, there might be 30-40% of their business that is literally not fit for purpose in the next three or four years,” he said.
On the same podcast, Shepherd also suggested that Goat was considering an IPO and said he hoped to create something similar to Sorrell’s current venture S4 Capital.
WPP - via its media investment arm GroupM - launched influencer business INCA in 2018 and acquired social media agency Village Marketing last year. Goat will merge with INCA to create what WPP called “the industry’s first truly global influencer marketing agency”.
“We couldn’t be happier to be joining WPP and GroupM to bring our leading global influencer marketing and digital solutions to some of the best brands in the world,” Shepherd said. “We are delighted to combine forces with the amazingâ¯talent at INCA to deliver even better value for our clients all over the world.”
The deal is the first exit for Inflexion’s lower mid-market fund. The Standard understands the private equity group made an 80% return on its investment in the influencer agency, though Inflexion declined to comment on its return.
“Inflexion has offered us tremendous support as we have scaled the business in the UK and internationally. In particular, their knowledge of the US market and strong digital capabilities have added significant value to the business,” Shepherd said.
WPP shares are up 1.1% today to 959.4p.
