[April 28, 2015] |
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WPP Makes Strategic Investment in Refinery29 Inc.
WPP (NASDAQ:WPPGY), the world's leading communications services group,
has made a strategic investment in Refinery29 Inc. ("Refinery29"), a
leading privately-held fashion and lifestyle media company that provides
content, shopping solutions and social networking opportunities
primarily in the fashion, shopping and beauty categories targeted
towards millennial women.
The investment is being made through WPP Ventures, which is based in
Silicon Valley and explores investments in new technology companies that
offer innovative solutions to WPP clients and strengthen the
capabilities of WPP. WPP Ventures partnered with Scripps Networks
Interactive in the investment.
Refinery29's advertisers include Procter & Gamble, Revlon, Neiman Marcus
and Luxottica. The company employs over 250 people and is based in New
York with an office in Los Angeles. Founded in 2005, it is the leading
content platform for millennial women with a loyal following of 25
million monthly unique viewers, reaching one out of every four
millennial women.
"Refinery29 operates at the intersectio of content, commerce and social
media - all areas of focus for WPP Ventures. We're delighted to make
this investment alongside Scripps," said Tom Bedecarré, President of WPP
Ventures.
This investment continues WPP's strategy of investing in fast growing
sectors such as digital and content. WPP's digital revenues were US$6.9
billion in 2014, representing 36% of the Group's total revenues of US$19
billion. WPP has set a target of 40-45% of revenue to be derived from
digital in the next five years.
In addition to Refinery29, WPP has invested in leading digital content
companies like China Media Capital, Fullscreen, Indigenous Media,
Imagina (a content rights and media company based in Spain), Media
Rights Capital and VICE.
WPP is a leader in the application of technology to marketing. Its
digital assets include companies like Acceleration (marketing technology
consultancy), Cognifide (content management technology), Salmon
(e-commerce), Hogarth (digital production technology) and Xaxis (the
world's largest programmatic media platform). WPP also has investments
in a number of innovative technology services companies such as Globant,
Mutual Mobile, Polestar (a specialist Alibaba e-commerce company in
China) and Rentrak (the film and television measurement company). It has
also invested in ad technology companies such as AppNexus, comScore (News - Alert) (the
US-based internet audience measurement company), eCommera, DOMO,
mySupermarket and Percolate. WPP's wholly-owned Chinese e-commerce
company Kuvera recently entered into a strategic partnership with
Paipai, China's leading social commerce platform on mobile and a
wholly-owned subsidiary of JD.com. WPP investments in technology, data
and content companies are valued at over US$1 billion.
WPP also owns digital agencies AKQA, Blue State Digital, F.biz in
Brazil, OgilvyOne (News - Alert), POSSIBLE, Rockfish, VML and Wunderman.
In North America, WPP companies (including associates) collectively
generate revenues of almost US$7 billion and employ around 27,000 people.
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