EP46 – Publicis' $2.2 billion bet of LiveRamp... but will advertisers buy it?

So Conor Publicis has acquired LiveRound for $2.2 billion.

What's the story here?

Well, Publicis recently made a pretty surprising purchase.

I was a bit blown away when I saw this.

And first of all, let's start off with who's LiveRamp? Well, they're used by brands and retailers and media platforms to sort of connect data.

And in fact, they're one of the biggest names in data clean rooms.

Since I heard of the word data clean rooms, the word I heard all the time was LiveRamp.

And I know people working there and They love it and they say it's a great business.

But LiveRamp itself isn't a sort of pure play business because it was actually founded in 2011 and Axiom bought it for $300 million in 2014.

So it's already been acquired.

In 2018, Axiom then was split up and the remaining entity was... was actually then renamed as LiveRamp.

But of course, over the year, LiveRamp themselves have done some acquisitions.

They want Arbor, Circulate, Pacific Data Partners, Data Plus Math, and of course, a couple of years ago, Habu were in the same sort of game as well.

So it's not a pure play thing.

It's actually a combination of acquisitions as well.

But let's swing back to publicists themselves.

Publicists?

By the way, can I just check? Are you going to continue throughout the rest of this podcast to talk about publicists as publicists? Well, that is a very good question.

Should I say

publicists? I just

want to question the use of the French.

I mean, they're a French company, right? But I don't know.

It's publicists, surely.

Well, my friends in France say publicis.

There you go.

So Conor Publicis has acquired LiveRound for $2.2 billion.

What's the story here?

Well, Publicis recently made a pretty surprising purchase.

I was a bit blown away when I saw this.

And first of all, let's start off with who's LiveRamp? Well, they're used by brands and retailers and media platforms to sort of connect data.

And in fact, they're one of the biggest names in data clean rooms.

Since I heard of the word data clean rooms, the word I heard all the time was LiveRamp.

And I know people working there and They love it and they say it's a great business.

But LiveRamp itself isn't a sort of pure play business because it was actually founded in 2011 and Axiom bought it for $300 million in 2014.

So it's already been acquired.

In 2018, Axiom then was split up and the remaining entity was... was actually then renamed as LiveRamp.

But of course, over the year, LiveRamp themselves have done some acquisitions.

They want Arbor, Circulate, Pacific Data Partners, Data Plus Math, and of course, a couple of years ago, Habu were in the same sort of game as well.

So it's not a pure play thing.

It's actually a combination of acquisitions as well.

But let's swing back to publicists themselves.

Publicists?

By the way, can I just check? Are you going to continue throughout the rest of this podcast to talk about publicists as publicists? Well, that is a very good question.

Should I say

publicists? I just

want to question the use of the French.

I mean, they're a French company, right? But I don't know.

It's publicists, surely.

Well, my friends in France say publicis.

There you go.