#74: Kin’s Kwame Taylor-Hayford on specificity over scale

back with the news of the week.

All right.

There was a fair amount this past week for what was supposed to be a quiet pre-can period of time.

I feel like the most significant piece of news coming out this week was Accenture buying Whaler from Whaler Group.

Olivia, any observations?

huge move for Accenture.

And I think considering Whaler's reputation in this space as it relates to creators and influencer marketing, they have the lighthouse and a really strong experiential group as well.

I think it's interesting and it just speaks to Accenture's further expansion.

I feel like I haven't heard of Accenture and Brian, you know better than me, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard of a recent acquisition that's like rooted in a influencer creator kind of place and so i'm curious to get your thoughts as well

yeah well they have made a small transaction in the past super digital i believe it was called where a much smaller entity Now, I think that every agency group has to play with creators one way or another.

They're working with third parties if they're not doing it directly.

But it's so integral to, I think, every major brand at this point in time that it's just part of the wallpaper at this point.

But I think investing in an actual agency with specialized services and some scale in those services is significant.

Here's the thing, though.

There's questions that I have that aren't really answered by the press releases or any cover devs.

You know, that one is, well, OK, so the rest of Whaler Group stays on a standalone basis with a relationship with Whaler, right? Is the software that lives inside of Whaler Group that Whaler, sorry, that Whaler, yeah, the agency is going to keep using the real value and this is actually just they're buying a body shop? Yeah.

Is it that there's some really specialized sauce inside the people that makes it more valuable? Our data that we can look at from LinkedIn suggests that Whaler, the agency, wasn't really growing very much in the space that is growing.

Was this just a fair price transaction for Accenture to get into the space? Whaler Group gets to focus more on the growthier parts.

I don't know.

I'm just saying these are questions I have.

And it also reminds me, like, as you were talking about, for some reason, I was thinking of a parallel between Whaler as a brand and its lighthouse, you know, event spaces everyone talks about and something like Sport Beach, which has recently been created as a standalone entity.

I feel like at face value, they seem like different things, but, you know, what they are in actuality are like these more like cultural things.

Or like creator-focused spaces that are kind of living alone and separate from like the larger entity.

Those could be different businesses, absolutely.

Now, I think just to maybe summarize my take, I think this is almost certainly a very good thing for Accenture Song and almost certainly a very good thing for Whaler.