WPP Buys Data Collaboration Specialist InfoSum

WPP is acquiring data collaboration platform InfoSum, which will join the former's GroupM media investment division and help to drive the creation of 'a new generation of AI-enhanced marketing solutions'.

InfoSum was founded in 2016 and has offices in the US, the UK, continental Europe and Australia, promising clients 'the only secure data clean room', where they can personalize and enhance customer experiences while using privacy-focused 'non-movement of data' technology. Its network gives access to hundreds of billions of data signals from media platforms including Channel 4, DIRECTV, ITV, Netflix, News Corp and Samsung Ads, as well as major retailers around the world and identity and data partners including Experian, TransUnion, Circana, Dynata, and NCSolutions. At the beginning of 2024 the firm launched a new offering called PrivatePath, giving an alternative way to optimize data use outside the clean room environment, and it continues to partner with broadcaster ITV to offer addressable advertising. It is also an existing partner of WPP via the latter's data and technology company Choreograph.

Following the acquisition, InfoSum's technology will be integrated with WPP Open, the marcoms giant's 'intelligent marketing operating system', promising clients immediate access to 'the industry's largest' cross-platform source of privacy-safe, actionable data for marketing intelligence, audience targeting and AI model training. WPP says the buy accelerates its development of what it calls 'Intelligence Beyond Identity', allowing clients to optimize use of their business intelligence and 'leapfrog' traditional and crumbling identity-based solutions. One benefit will be the ability for clients to rapidly build, train and deploy custom AI models using datasets from InfoSum, GroupM and the wider agency.

Lauren Wetzel (pictured) will remain CEO of InfoSum, and will add the role of Chief Solutions Officer for GroupM, working cross-functionally to develop data-driven products and solutions for clients. She will work again with GroupM CEO Brian Lesser who left the top job at InfoSum just nine months ago to return to WPP, with then-COO Wetzel stepping up to replace him.

WPP Chief Exec Mark Read comments: 'Bringing InfoSum into WPP is a major step forward for our data capabilities and the results we can deliver for our clients. It allows clients to stay in complete control of their first-party data, while also giving them access to vastly greater quantities of high-quality, privacy-compliant data and pioneering technology that is not available anywhere else in the market today.'

'InfoSum's mission has always been to reimagine how data powers marketing in a secure, privacy-first, and, most importantly, impactful way for advertisers and consumers' comments Wetzel. 'WPP and GroupM are the perfect partners to help us accelerate our impact on a truly global scale'.

Web sites: www.infosum.com and www.wpp.com .