Staud Studios to merge with MediaMonks

RNS Number : 2359M

S4 Capital PLC

20 January 2021

 

20th January 2021

S4 Capital plc

("S⁴Capital" or "the Company")

Staud Studios to merge with MediaMonks

MediaMonks strengthens its content and automotive capabilities, adds talent and expands to Germany

S⁴Capital plc (SFOR.L), the tech-led, new age/new era digital advertising and marketing services company, announces that STAUD STUDIOS, a high-end creative production studio specialising in the Automotive industry, is merging with MediaMonks, S⁴Capital's Content practice. The merger formalises MediaMonks' presence in Germany, Europe's second largest Advertising market.

STAUD STUDIOS was founded in 1983 by celebrated car photographer René Staud and is now run by his sons Pascal and Patrick Staud . Over the past 35 years STAUD has worked for almost every automotive brand in the world and evolved into a full-service marketing solution specialised in connected experiences along the customer journey. The 75 automotive specialists based in Stuttgart serve international mobility brands with a deep industry knowledge and unique capabilities in digital production and technology, like Unreal-based visualization solutions.

S⁴Capital Executive Chairman Sir Martin Sorrell said, "We are delighted to welcome Pascal and his colleagues to MediaMonks and S⁴Capital. We look forward to developing a strong Content, Data & Digital Media practice in Germany,  leveraging STAUD's Automotive expertise on a global basis and broadening our base in Western Europe."

"STAUD STUDIOS will play a key part in building up the Marcom ENGINE solution for BMW & MINI. Their Automotive expertise is second to none - going forward Pascal and his team in Stuttgart will become the global centre of expertise for mobility at MediaMonks." said Victor Knaap, CEO MediaMonks, and S⁴Capital Executive Director.

Pascal Staud, CEO of STAUD STUDIOS added "We see a huge demand for change in the automotive industry with a specific need for direct to consumer models, personalized interactions and scalable digital and 3D experiences. As MediaMonks' Global Mobility Hub we add relevant capabilities to our existing services, to help our clients on their path of transformation."

"The possibility to plug in our production pipeline into MediaMonks makes our services truly global and scalable, which is essential to serve our clients on their futures needs" adds Patrick Staud, who is STAUD's Chief Creative Technologist.

Enquiries

S4Capital plc	Tel: [phone]
Sir Martin Sorrell, Executive Chairman
Powerscourt (PR adviser to S4Capital plc)	Tel: [phone]
Elly Williamson
Jessica Hodgson

About Staud Studios

STAUD STUDIOS is a creative production studio, covering all interfaces of the customer journey for some of the most iconic car brands in the world. Applying the same level of care and innovative thinking with which their clients develop vehicles and mobility concepts, STAUD nurtures and builds customer experiences.

By operating at the intersection of creativity and technology, STAUD approaches premium, insight-driven production that drives results. STAUD unique competence is its combination of real shoot capabilities with CGI to produce assets at scale and in real time. An international and interdisciplinary team of 75 individuals is led by Pascal Staud (CEO), Patrick Staud (Chief Creative Technologist), Uwe Jakob (Chief Creative Engineer), Marco Rex (Chief Delivery Officer) and Dagmar Kraus-Stubenrauch as CFO.

STAUD STUDIOS was born in the roots of the mobility industry in Stuttgart/Germany, next door to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. Founded by René Staud, one of the most famous car photographers in the world, it has been active in the automotive sector for more than 35 years. Since he developed the innovative Magicflash® surface illuminating technology in 1983, the deep knowledge of the industry combined with the constant drive for innovation, made STAUD to work for almost any automotive brand in the world. Led by its second generation, Pascal and Patrick Staud, they continued to innovate and evolve the studio into a full-service marketing solution-focused not only on producing high-end creative, but also bringing it to life through smart use of data.

About MediaMonks

MediaMonks is a global creative production company that partners with clients across industries and markets to craft amazing work for leading businesses and brands. Its integrated production capabilities span the entire creative spectrum, covering anything you could possibly want from a production partner, and probably more.

From creative campaigns and content to bespoke development and design, MediaMonks works above the line and below the fold at the intersection of creativity and technology. Operating across teams, time zones, and technologies with an incredible in-house team of more than 3,350 Monks, including recent S4Capital mergers. Its work is recognized by advertising and craft awards around the world, producing 131 Cannes Lions and 240+ FWAs to date.

Founded in 2001 and rooted in digital, you can find MediaMonks anywhere on the Web as well as in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mountain View, Sandpoint, Toronto, New York, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Hilversum, Cape Town, Stockholm, Kiev, Dnepr, Moscow, Nur-Sultan, Dubai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland.

About S⁴Capital

S⁴Capital plc (SFOR.L) is the tech-led, new age/new era digital advertising and marketing services company, established by Sir Martin Sorrell in May 2018.

Its strategy is to build a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands. This will be achieved initially by integrating leading businesses in two practice areas: Data & digital media and Content, along with an emphasis on "faster, better, cheaper" executions in an always-on consumer-led environment, with a unitary structure.

Digital is by far the fastest-growing segment of the advertising market. S⁴Capital estimates that in 2019 digital accounted for approximately 47.5% or $275 billion of total global advertising spend of $550-600 billion (excluding about $400 billion of trade support, the primary target of the Amazon advertising platform), and projects that by 2022 this share will grow to approximately 55-60% and by 2024 to approximately 70%, accelerated by the impact of covid-19. It is anticipated that in 2020, total global advertising spend will shrink to approximately $500-550 billion, driven by a fall in traditional media advertising expenditure. However digital advertising spend is expected to remain constant or increase slightly and therefore improve its market share of total advertising spend to over 50% for the first time.

S⁴Capital combined with MediaMonks, the leading AdAge A-listed creative digital content production company led by Victor Knaap and Wesley ter Haar, in July 2018 and with MightyHive, the market-leading digital media solutions provider for future thinking marketers and agencies, led by Peter Kim and Christopher S. Martin, in December 2018.

In April 2019, MightyHive combined with ProgMedia to expand operations into Latin America and MediaMonks acquired film studio Caramel Pictures to expand content studio capabilities. In June 2019, MediaMonks announced a planned combination with Australia-based BizTech, a leading marketing transformation and customer experience company. In August 2019, MediaMonks combined with Amsterdam-based digital influencer marketing agency IMA. In October 2019, MediaMonks combined with Firewood Marketing, the largest digital marketing agency based in Silicon Valley, that was recently ranked, along with MediaMonks and Circus (see below), as one of the fastest growing agencies by Adweek, and MightyHive combined with award-winning UK-based digital analytics, biddable media and data science company ConversionWorks and South Korea-based data and analytics consultancy MightyHive Korea. In November 2019, MediaMonks announced its combination with Delhi-based content creation and production company WhiteBalance (completed in August 2020 - the delay due to necessary merger clearance procedures) and then with fully integrated digital agency Circus Marketing in January 2020 (completed in March 2020).

In May 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with Digodat, one of the leading Latin American data and analytics consultancies, and in June 2020, MightyHive announced its combination with Lens10, a leading Australian digital strategy and analytics consultancy. In July 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with Orca Pacific, a market leading full-service Amazon agency and boutique consultancy firm based in Seattle. In August 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with London-based Brightblue, an econometric and media optimisation consultancy. In September 2020, MediaMonks announced its combination with Dare.Win, expanding its geographical presence to France. In January 2021, MediaMonks announced its combination with integrated creative, technology and media agency Decoded Advertising and Shanghai based creative agency TOMORROW. MightyHive also announced its combination with integrated digital performance marketing agency Metric Theory.

On 16 July 2020 S⁴Capital announced the successful placing of 36,766,642 new ordinary shares at a price of 315p raising approximately £116m gross proceeds which will be used for further expansion and merger and combination purposes.

Victor Knaap, Wesley ter Haar, Pete Kim, Christopher Martin, Peter Rademaker and Scott Spirit all joined the S4Capital Board as Directors. The S4Capital Board also includes Rupert Faure Walker, Paul Roy, Daniel Pinto, Sue Prevezer, Elizabeth Buchanan, Naoko Okumoto, Margaret Ma Connolly and Miles Young.

The Company now has over 4,075 people in 31 countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific and a current market capitalisation of approximately £3.0 billion (c.$4billion), and would rank in the FTSE 150. It achieved Unicorn status in a little over one year, unique in the advertising and marketing services industry.

Sir Martin was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million "shell" company in 1985 into the world's largest advertising and marketing services company with a market capitalisation of over £16 billion on the day he left. Today its market capitalisation is £10 billion. Prior to that Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Company Plc for nine years.

 

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