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FEATURING

NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) today announced the next step in its expansion into Asia-Pacific via an affiliate partnership with Coconuts Media, the leading alternative online publisher reaching an audience of millions across Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, and Yangon. The partnership meaningfully expands Stagwell’s media investment in the region and adds a key partner with scaled content, production, and distribution capabilities to support global clients.

Via the partnership, Stagwell and Coconuts will collaborate to offer clients a competitive mix of traditional and digital media services, advice on region-specific consumer trends including the high growth in social commerce sales in APAC, and scaled media placement and distribution opportunities informed by first-party data across the Coconuts Media network. Additionally, Stagwell’s agencies in the region – including Assembly, Allison+Partners, 72andSunny, Forsman & Bodenfors, Ink, and more — will partner with Coconuts’ in-house marketing agency, Grove, in collaborative pitches and marketing campaigns. 

Coconuts Media’s publications include Coconuts, serving fresh and juicy news from eight cities in Asia; BK Magazine, Bangkok’s leading source for the best places to eat and hang out; and Soimilk, a daily dose of lifestyle news for Thailand’s digital-savvy youth. Grove, Coconuts Media’s in-house creative studio, ideates and manages campaigns for brands, while Coconuts TV produces documentary and unscripted programs for the likes of Netflix, Discovery, and MTV. 

“With the opening of Stagwell’s first-ever APAC headquarters in Singapore and our agencies’ continued success in the region, we’re investing heavily in Asia-Pacific as part of our global expansion this year,” said Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, Stagwell. “We’re eager to collaborate with Byron and the Coconuts Media team to offer our leading mix of digital and media services to strengthen the APAC offering for our clients.”

“With our publishing roots as a foundation, we are growing our creative and media buying services and the business of serving clients as a modern creative agency,” said Coconuts Media Founder and CEO Byron Perry. “Partnering with a challenger marketing network like Stagwell makes total sense as we work with larger, more complex global clients.”

The affiliate partnership with Coconuts Media is the latest step in Stagwell’s ambitious global expansion strategy, which has seen the Company add over 40 affiliates in locations across MENA, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. In January 2022, Stagwell also launched a corporate headquarters in Singapore to accelerate business development opportunities across APAC and support regional client partners, led by Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Randy Duax.

“Coconuts is changing the game when it comes to scaled content and premium media partnerships across APAC,” added Duax. “With the growth of their in-house creative agency and recent media acquisitions, they are a powerful partner as Stagwell rolls up its sleeves to help brands transform their marketing in the region.”

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

About Coconuts Media

Coconuts Media is Asia’s leading alternative media company.

Our mission is to inform and entertain our audience by telling true stories that matter across our portfolio of publications:

• Coconuts, fresh and juicy news on what’s happening Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, Yangon, and beyond
• BK Magazine, Bangkok’s leading source for the best places to eat and hang out
• Soimilk, a daily dose of lifestyle news for Thailand’s digital-savvy youth

Coconuts TV, our video brand, produces documentary programs on weird and wondrous stories from Asia for broadcast TV and streaming platforms. Grove, our in-house brand studio, ideates and manages creative campaigns for leading international brands that run on Coconuts brands and beyond.

Each month we reach an audience of millions across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong through digital, print, audio, and video.

We are passionate about journalism, the media industry, and telling the untold stories of our region. Learn more at www.coconuts.co

By

Stagwell Insights

CES 2022 is in the rearview mirror. The technologies that debuted this year will bring accelerated innovation and transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands, and experience culture for years to come.

This year, Stagwell hosted a series of virtual floor tours featuring expert commentary on the trends we expect will transform marketing in 2022 and the implications for marketers. Below, we share our top four takeaways: 

More Screens, in More Places, More Often (Doing Different Things):  

• The trend: Television is evolving from a purely entertainment-focused device to a multi-faceted video display, enabling a sprawling universe of entertainment, lifestyle, home décor, news & information, and communication possibilities supported by the assistance of your favorite AI and voice-enabled tech.  
• The implications: More screens, in more places, more often means more media placement channels for brands, greatly expanding the array of consumer distribution touchpoints available. The way content is displayed isn’t the only thing changing; the nature of content itself will adapt to streaming-era behaviors that can more seamlessly connect content to commerce-driving actions via things like QR codes. Perhaps unexpectedly, the TV console in 2022 may find new life as a portal for discovery, addressable content marketing, and a rich source of first-party data.  

The Creator Economy is Here – For Everyone:  

• The trend: Tools for video creators continue to evolve, giving both the quality and bells and whistles of strong video content that were once reserved for professionals. At the same time, brands are experimenting with ways to give consumers creative control over branded products and services, seen in products like the L’Oreal Colorsonic which allows consumers to make their own custom lipstick.   
• The implications: 2022 will be the year technology and brands converge to empower everyone to be a creator of products, not just content. For brands with an imperative to scale compelling across increasingly niche consumer segments, marketing activations that empower the average consumers to use brand assets, products, or other associated content will be a powerful tool for awareness and top-of-funnel marketing.  

Problem-Solving Tech: 

• The trend: Technology is shifting to focus on the key economic and social challenges that were illuminated by the pandemic, such as food sustainability and labor and supply chain shortages. We saw a heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence and robotics as a tool for tackling these complex challenges of human scale, exemplified in products like John Deere’s fully autonomous tractor or the tradeshow-wide trend towards Electric Vehicles. 
• The implications: Brands will have new opportunities to scale the best practices enabled by problem-solving tech, which can unlock exciting new business models, product offerings, and service capabilities. At the same time, renewed corporate interest in the environmental and social footprints of businesses will add pressure for CMOs to ensure marketing communications and operations address their businesses’ impact. 

Scaling In-House Marketing:  

• The trend: The tech on display in the C Space for marketers underscores the need for a toolbox of scalable, DIY-marketing tools for in-house teams, who are increasingly present at major brands. At CES this year, Stagwell showcased the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, our suite of solutions supporting business transformation for in-house marketers, arrayed across real-time business intelligence, AI-powered comms tech, AR for events, and end-to-end influencer marketing management.
• The implications: With over 77% of organizations now having some form of in-house agency, expect investment in tools & services to support in-house marketing creation and execution to continue. Specifically, brands will be on the hunt for solutions that enable them to unify first-party data, create content at scale, and drive efficiency through their operations via automation.    

—

To dive deeper into the technology on display at CES 2022, stream a recording of Stagwell’s Virtual Floor Tours here, and reach out to beth.sidhu@stagwellglobal.com if you have questions.   

CONTACT

Beth Sidhu

FEATURING

Stagwell Chief Brand and Communications Officer Beth Sidhu visits the Stagwell Marketing Cloud at CES 2022 and highlights key priorities for tech investment for in-house marketers.  

There’s a reason the marketing calendar begins each year with CES: there is no better place to track the technologies that will transform the way consumers get and share information, engage with brands and experience culture. Stagwell is on the ground in Las Vegas and virtually at CES this week sharing ARound, a location-based AR platform, which is the latest addition to our suite of tools for in-house marketers: the Stagwell Marketing Cloud.

Why build an in-house marketing cloud? CMOs need a trusted toolbox of solutions to help support business transformation as, per Forrester, 77 percent of global organizations now have some form of in-house agency. We’ve built the Stagwell Marketing Cloud to support in-house teams in four ways:

Powering real-time business intelligence

Empower and manage secondary brand ambassadors

Supercharging communications with predictive AI

Forge new mediums to connect with consumers
 

Powering Real-Time Business Intelligence 

Real-time business intelligence tools like the Harris Brand Platform can provide in-house teams with daily insights on brand perception, equity, sales funnels and the impact of marketing campaigns on consumer behavior and perceptions. In an era where errant tweets and unfortunate headlines can cause your brand’s stock to soar or sink, there are few better ways to fireproof your operations than regular pulses of brand perception.

Supercharging communications with predictive A.I.

Marketing communications evolve but the mission remains the same: get the right message to the right person at the right time. When harnessed strategically, earned media can help a team offset (or if they’re lucky, supplant) the need for a hefty paid investment.

PRophet is a tool that enables in-house marketers and PR professionals to predict media interest, sentiment and spread of a press story prior to pitching. The product is powered by the latest developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning and bolstered by expanding partner databases such as with Podchaser to give teams the predictive intelligence they need to tie amplify their great creative ideas with earned media coverage. As A.I. gets more sophisticated, tools like PRophet can free-up PR pros to focus their creativity on brand-building efforts and growing brand mandates like ESG, DEI, and engaging new stakeholders.

Empowering Brand-Safe Ambassadors.

In a platform dominated society, influence is currency. With the rise of social commerce, live streaming, and yes even the metaverse, it’s more important than ever for brands to have strategies for authentically activating influencers that dominate their respective categories. At the same time, marketers need assurances that the influencers they partner with are brand-safe and services rendered are compliant with agreed-upon contracts.

Koalifyed is an end-to-end influencer marketing application that brings helps brands manage complex influencer programs. Underpinned by a bot-detection solution, SNIFF (which stands for social network influencer friend or foe), Koalifyed is a great tool for in-house marketers handling complex influencer campaigns.

Pushing the New Frontiers of the Consumer Experience

Without a doubt, 2022 will bring all the tools of mixed reality and the metaverse into marketing efforts. Just as brands are looking into the virtual world, consumers will be clamoring to return to the physical world, pending the control of the Omicron variant. In-house shops can use location-based AR as an easy, cost-effective investment into developing more engaging digital layers to live events.

ARound is an augmented reality creation tool for live events that empowers brand to bring audiences together at scale so they can engage, interact, and socialize in a completely new and meaningful way. By giving partners the tech and a content interface to experiment with the medium, ARound empowers in-house teams to invest now in the budding metaverse to enhance the journey for consumers.

Where to From Here? 

In-house marketers need the best tools available and we’re excited to that support in-house marketing transformation for modern businesses. See ARound, our AR product, on the floor this week at CES, peruse our digital CES booth featuring more products from the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, and reach out to hello@stagwellglobal.com. 

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FEATURING

NEW YORK, and LONDON, Dec. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) and Stagwell Media Network today announced a strategic partnership with leading out-of-home (OOH) media specialist Talon to accelerate global growth in OOH advertising. Talon joins Stagwell’s network to expand their collective global presence in offering smarter, data-driven, and creative-led OOH planning, buying, and proprietary technologies to advertisers.

With the outdoor movement returning to pre-pandemic levels, the global OOH market is rebounding quickly, achieving a 21.8 percent uptick this year and an expected 13.3 percent increase  in 2022, according to WARC. The combination of Talon’s deep investments in market-leading adtech platforms, including Ada, Atlas and Plato and strategy-led OOH leadership, and Stagwell’s global scale offers brands and agencies around the world a powerful path for accessing innovative capabilities to power outcomes-based OOH campaigns.

“The global digital OOH market is highly fragmented and represents an untapped growth opportunity and Talon has built an impressive portfolio of technology and service capabilities with a deep bench strength of OOH specialists,” said Jon Schaaf, Global Chief Investment Officer of Stagwell. “Our collaboration with Talon will help educate more brands and agencies across the global marketplace on the growing OOH opportunities for tapping into richer behavioral and location insights for quantifying the channel’s true impact across the customer journey.”

Barry Cupples, Talon’s Global CEO said, “The digital transformation of OOH is bringing game-changing opportunities for advertisers to apply modern, data-driven advertising techniques to target audiences and measure outcomes more precisely than ever. Stagwell is one of the fastest-growing and transformative creative services networks and we look forward to our collaboration in fueling our next stage of growth in making it easier for advertisers in more markets to access and execute captivating and performance-driven OOH campaigns that surround people’s everyday journeys.”

With its complementary media capability of global digital out of home, Talon joins Stagwell’s diverse network of Affiliate Partners providing unique solutions around the world. Designed to provide brands with capabilities to engage audiences during pivotal moments across cultures, Stagwell’s Affiliate Network spans a host of capabilities including e-commerce, scaled content and media.

This partnership comes on the heels of Talon’s rapid expansion in the U.S. market. Talon formed a strategic partnership with The Buntin Group to create a new entity named Talon-Buntin America that delivers scale, agility, and expanded capabilities for local and regional brands. In addition, Talon unveiled a new connected video offering, which unifies OTT and digital OOH (DOOH) advertising through a new partnership with MadHive. Earlier this year, Talon formed a North American partnership with Hivestack that makes OOH buying as frictionless as possible with self-serve access for advertisers.

About Talon:
Talon Outdoor is the leading global independent Out of Home (OOH) media specialist and technology services company focused on delivering smarter, creative, data-driven integrated OOH communications. Combining independence with a collaborative approach, Talon promotes open and transparent working relationships between many of the world’s leading agencies, clients, and media partners. Headquartered in London with additional offices in Manchester and its affiliate Talon America LLC headquartered in New York City, Talon delivers expertise at the global, national, regional, and local levels. Plexus is Talon’s global OOH planning and buying network that connects over 20 Talon and partner offices around the world enabling expert campaign planning in over 100 markets worldwide. Please visit www.talonoutdoor.com and www.plexusoutdoor.com follow up on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Stagwell Inc.:
Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

About Stagwell Media Network
Stagwell’s Media Network is a group of leading multichannel agencies home to more than 3,000 experts with an expansive global footprint across 40+ offices in 20 countries, managing close to $5 billion in media. Agencies include Assembly, MMI Agency, Media Kitchen, and Grason, creative consultancy GALE, B2B specialist Multiview, multilingual content agency Locaria, and travel and media experts Ink. The network offers marketers a more dynamic partner for global B2B and B2C solutions spanning data, technology, media, and creativity aimed at accelerating business growth for brands worldwide.

Media Contact

Talon America: Ray Yeung + Nancy Zakhary | Relev8 | ray@relev8.co + nancy@relev8.co
Stagwell: Beth Sidhu  beth@stagwellglobal.com  | +1. 202.423.4414

SOURCE Stagwell Inc.

Originally released on

Stagwell agencies 72andSunny, Anomaly, Doner, Forsman & Bodenfors, Assembly, and newly-launched Stagwell Media Network received “best of the best” honors for innovative, effective and creative work in global tally, including Most Awarded Campaigns, Top Brands for Creative and Top Networks for Creative

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell, the challenger company transforming marketing, today announced that the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) has recognized five agency partners and the Stagwell Media Network as leaders in creative and effective campaigns and media strategies that drive sustained success on behalf of global brands. WARC celebrates the world’s most awarded campaigns, networks and agencies, benchmarking the excellence of creatives around the globe. The work honored by WARC in the Creative 100 and Effective 100 awards represents compelling, innovative consumer campaigns and experiences that are defining the next generation of marketing.

The WARC Creative 100 is determined by tallying recognitions at global and regional creative awards shows, including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Clio Awards, and London International Awards (LIA). Similarly, the WARC Effective 100 takes into consideration recognitions from Effies, IPA Effectiveness Awards, Jay Chiat Awards, and others.

Stagwell agencies 72andSunny, Anomaly, Assembly, Doner, and Forsman & Bodenfors all received recognitions on this year’s rankings, as well as Stagwell’s newly-launched Stagwell Media Network. Full highlights from this year’s WARC Creative 100 include:

• Forsman & Bodenfors: Ranked #3 in Top 30 Campaigns (Creative 100) with Volvo E.V.A. Initiative
• Forsman & Bodenfors’ cutting-edge campaign, “Equal Vehicles for All Initiative” (E.V.A.) for Volvo, was celebrated as a Top 30 Campaign (Creative 100). The E.V.A. Initiative shared 40 years of research via an integrated campaign to raise awareness of gender inequities in crash tests. The global campaign drove unmatched engagement, with over 290 million social media impressions and led to over 40,000 downloads of its database. The E.V.A. Initiative has also received awards from the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity, CLIO, Eurobest, and SABRE.
• Stagwell Media Network: Ranked #45 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). Stagwell Media Network – launched in August 2021 – combines leading omnichannel expertise for global B2B and B2C solutions from several leading media agencies, including Assembly (formerly Assembly and ForwardPMX), MMI Agency, Media Kitchen, and Grason, creative consultancy GALE, B2B specialist Multiview, multilingual content agency Locaria and travel and media experts Ink.
• Anomaly: Ranked #13 in Top 50 Creative Agency (Effective 100) and #28 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 
• Assembly: Ranked #33 in the Top 50 Media Agencies list (Effective 100). 
• 72andSunny: Ranked #29 in Top 30 Campaigns with Swipe Night, #29 in Creative Networks (Creative 100), #31 in Top Network in the Media (Media 100), and #48 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 
• 72andSunny’s extraordinary work for Tinder’s Swipe Night was recognized in Most Awarded Campaigns (Creative 100). Swipe Night, the network’s most awarded creative client work for 2021, has been widely celebrated as a standout of digital content and entertainment, transforming the way consumers date. The campaign has also been recognized at the Cannes Lion Festival of Creativity, Clio, Effies and the Daytime Emmy Awards, among others.  
• Doner: Ranked #46 in Top 50 Networks (Effective 100). 

“Our agencies’ recognitions from WARC demonstrate Stagwell’s unlimited potential to drive results and recognition for the world’s leading brands,” said Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO, Stagwell Global. “WARC’s decision to honor Stagwell Media Network – one of our first and largest initiatives as the newly combined Stagwell Inc.– highlights the power of our integrated approach to client solutions, which is driven by cutting edge creative and digital solutions.”

For more information on Stagwell Global and our award-winning work, please visit stagwellglobal.com.

About Stagwell Inc.

Stagwell is the challenger network built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing.  Led by entrepreneurs, our 10,000+ specialists in 20+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.