Publicis buys Epsilon, a data-marketer, for $4.4bn. The deal hints at advertisers’ virtual designs
(The Economist, 20.04.2019)
“WHEN YOU reach for the stars, you might not quite get one,” Leo Burnett once mused, “but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” The storied ad man could have been talking of the purchase by Publicis—the French owner of ad agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Media and, yes, Leo Burnett—of Epsilon, an American data-marketing business, announced on April 14th. The $4.4bn deal is the firm’s largest since it was founded in 1926.
On its face, the move looks sensible. Advertisers are keen to amass customer data and the tools to analyse them. Epsilon provides both. The company gathers data—from promotional emails, browsing, transactions in physical shops and so on—to build detailed profiles of consumers, so advertisers can woo them more precisely. Publicis hopes this will give it an edge over rival holding companies such as WPP, Omnicom or Interpublic Group (IPG).
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