As the media, advertising and marketing landscape shifts, driven by evolving market needs, competition and technological advancements, companies are launching at innovative offerings in markets in a bid to upset the status quo with others getting into unlikely partnerships to be ahead of the game.

VMLY&R COMMERCE has announced an exclusive partnership with with Shopmatic, an e-commerce platform.

The agreement involves the creation of a co-branded commerce platform ‘Oh My Cart’, a one-click, channel-neutral commerce solution for client partners.

Stacked with the agency’s Commercial Growth Consulting offering, this makes VMLY&R COMMERCE the only agency or consulting network to deliver an end-to-end commerce solution to clients, from Commercial Growth consulting to completing actual transaction and last mile logistics.

At the same time, WPP has announced that its majority-owned subsidiary, Finsbury Glover Hering Corporation, Finsbury Glover Hering, and Sard Verbinnen & Co have reached agreement on the terms of a merger to create the world’s leading strategic communications firm advising clients in navigating critical opportunities and challenges (the “Transaction”).

The new firm will help clients achieve their missions and realise their business goals, with approximately 1,000 professionals operating from 25 offices in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States, including its global headquarters in New York. Pro forma combined 2020 revenue was more than $330 million.

Still on partnerships, MediaCom, Teads, TikTok and Yahoo have launched The Big Idea – a contest that will see a number of MediaCom’s advertiser clients win up to $3 million of media value for their brand’s 2022 campaigns across the promoters’ platforms.

The innovative new partnership takes the form of a commercial contest inspiring MediaCom’s clients to work with their agency team to develop innovative, creative and impactful campaign ideas. Submissions will have to use each of the three media owners’ data, tech and creative services and be executed exclusively in their media outlets. The three winners will be chosen by juries comprised of senior executives from across the respective media platforms, selecting their favourite proposals accordingly.

Less than a year after the launch of Havas CX Italy, the dedicated customer experience and digital transformation network, Havas Group has announced it has acquired Nohup, an agency in Italy for cloud services, digital transformation processes and system integration.

This partnership, led by Manfredi Calabrò who runs Havas CX Italy and is CEO of Havas Milan, marks a further step in the expansion of Havas Group’s expertise in customer experience and will be very beneficial to the whole European market.

ViacomCBS Inc. and Altice USA have announced a comprehensive agreement for the continued carriage of ViacomCBS’ portfolio of broadcast, entertainment, news and sports networks for Altice USA’s Optimum and Suddenlink customers.

The deal also provides Altice USA with rights to ViacomCBS’ suite of streaming services, including Paramount+, SHOWTIME® OTT, Pluto TV, BET+ and Noggin.

In other news, Essence, the global data and measurement- driven media agency, part of GroupM, has announced the launch of Essence in France, a new generation of media agency.

Inspired by Silicon Valley, Essence helps brands enter a new business paradigm driven by algorithms and data, and was originally created to support tech champions such as Google and will continue to support them in France.

In tech news, Tech giant Microsoft recently announced it would shut down its LinkedIn professional networking site in China this year, making it the last major American social media network to pull out of the market, per the Wall Street Journal.

In the brand sustainability front, Solar energy developer Dhamma Energy, fully owned by Eni, inaugurated the 87.5 MWp Athies-Samoussy solar farm in France. The solar park covers 100 hectares of the former Laon-Athies NATO Air Base, which was abandoned and has now been converted into a sustainability-focused site.

The five plants composing the Athies-Samoussy complex are now fully operational: this is the largest solar farm in the Hauts-de-France region and one of the ten largest in France. The solar plant will produce 93 GWh per year, which is equivalent to the domestic consumption of 40,000 households.

And INEOS, through its subsidiary INOVYN, announced plans to build a large-scale, 100MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen at the Koln site in Germany.

As a first step of the project, INEOS will produce green hydrogen to feed into INEOS green ammonia production – the new application in the future of green fuel production. As the second largest global chemical product, transitioning towards green ammonia production could lead to reducing almost 1% of global greenhouse gases per year. This development, by INEOS Nitriles , initiates the transition towards achieving a low-carbon future within the chemical industry.

Bob Koigi is an editor at Marketing Report EU

www.marketingreport.eu