UK's WPP buys Obviously to expand social influencer marketing business


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- British advertising group WPP said on Monday it has acquired Obviously, a New York-based social influencer marketing agency, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal comes less than a week after WPP agreed to buy Goat, an influencer marketing specialist, which focusses on marketing campaigns that aim to improve customer engagement for brands including Dell, Tesco, Uber and Natura.

Obviously's team of nearly 100 people will join WPP subsidiary VMLY&R, a marketing agency with over 13,000 employees, WPP said.

WPP said Obviously's proprietary "next-generation" tech platform helps the agency service large-scale complex campaigns for enterprise clients including Google, Ford, Ulta Beauty and Amazon. Obviously was founded by Mae Karwowski and Maxime Domain in 2014 and has operations in San Francisco and Paris.

WPP's shares were up 1.5% at 931 pence as of 1415 GMT.

 

(Reporting by Muhammed Husain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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