Advertising network Stagwell has today launched the Stagwell Media Platform (SMP).
The centralised team of global media, technology and data experts will sit across all Stagwell agencies, using its scale, partnerships, tech and agentic principles to make Stagwell’s media and data investment solutions more readily available to partners and clients worldwide.
According to Stagwell’s announcement, this includes modelling, forecasting and optimising “towards outstanding efficiency and outcomes for clients”, as well as a suite of solutions across creative, media and digital transformation services.
Assembly's global chief operating officer, Matt Adams, will serve as global CEO of the SMP, and Marissa Jimenez, former EVP, commercial at dentsu US, will join on July 14th as global chief trading and solutions officer.
Matt told LBB that the goals of the SMP are to ‘streamline how they do business with partners’ by unifying processes across Stagwell's investment portfolio to create competitive client advantages.
“This launch helps facilitate a better way for our clients to access all of Stagwell and to change how we show up to the market,” he said. “We believe in the connectivity of specialists.”
In the last 25 years, Matt has developed an expertise in building companies and teams, while working across holding companies, indie agencies and in sales roles around the world. Having led Assembly in Europe and as global COO, he is also familiar with Stagwell and ‘challenging the market’ with a combination of partnerships and tech.
Meanwhile, of his soon to be co-leader, Matt said, “Marissa is a deep subject matter expert who has led over $25bn of media investment - she is a pro, an amazing leader and a digitally native mind. She knows how to build and how to get the best from our media partners.”
This skillset is particularly advantageous because, as well as focusing on “global partner access and acceleration” – Matt explained that the SMP will inform media planning for clients too.
“The SMP will help make smarter media investment decisions utilising AI across the whole team and deeper access to data and technology customised to agency needs all the way through to centralised programmatic supply.
“We build into our partners, with them and not around them,” he continued, explaining that the SMP will also lead delivery on initiatives like ‘The Future of News’ and the recently launched ‘Stagwell News Network’. “Our clients benefit from real time creative, powered by AI, to accelerate performance and our brand control suite in programmatic. We have a tonne of initiatives coming down the track!”
Matt added that Stagwell is in its “next phase of growth” and is ready to ‘bring themselves together’ with this new platform.
“The world of media and technology has changed more in the last six months than in the last six years,” he said. “Having one access point for our partners allows Stagwell to deploy technology solutions at scale, for all, as we use agentic solutions to deliver 'smart', not just 'scale'.
“The game has changed, and we are reacting to stay ahead and to give our clients a competitive advantage.”