Sir Martin, interviewed by Kathleen Saxton, CEO of The Lighthouse Company
Sir Martin Sorrell has said his new venture S4 Capital will be defined by speed and a test-and-learn “loop” style marketing as the ex-WPP boss labelled tent-pole campaigns old fashioned.
Speaking at Advertising Week Europe on Tuesday, Sir Martin also said S4’s model was purely about using first-party data to drive digital content delivery through programmatic, effectively shunning ‘traditional’ media.
“It’s like running a political campaign, but with no election date,” he said of the approach S4 has chosen to adopt following its launch last year.
“It is an iterative process where you develop content. You test it, you send it out, you test it, you get the results and you develop the content further.[advert position=”left”]
“It’s a loop. People may disagree, but no longer are tent-pole campaigns critical.”
Sir Martin said client CEOs and CMOs had told him they were no longer in the business of making big films or big campaigns.
“They all say their organisations are too slow. That need for speed is absolutely critical,” Sir Martin said, calling out the cumbersome process of developing a creative brief over many weeks. “It doesn’t work anymore.”
Sir Martin, who launched S4 in May 2018 after his shock departure from WPP, was speaking a day after releasing the company’s inaugural results.
S4 reported pre-tax profit of £7.6m for 2018, down from £8.6m in 2017 (on a pro forma basis, which shows financial results as if the company has been trading for a year). Revenues rose 58% to £135.9m.
However, due to the purchase of digital production company MediaMonks and programmatic specialists MightyHive, S4 made a pre-tax loss of £9.1m on a statutory basis.
On Tuesday, Sir Martin said the results vindicated S4’s strategy. The venture has already attracted clients including Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Nestlé and Electronic Arts.
