In Erik’s podcast Sir Martin Sorrell describes the third act of his career. He shares his view on the advertising industry and gives insights on S4 Capital, his purely digital advertising and marketing service business that was founded in 2018. In the interview the two are discussing the following topics:

What is Sir Martins perception of the status quo of the advertising industry?

What is the perception of advertiser on the increasing transparency?

What is the biggest limitation in terms of top line growth?

What is your perception of the German media and agency landscape? E.g., Accenture Interactive

What is your opinion on the future of consultants?

What are the competitors for S4 Capital?

In the end, Sir Martin and Erik discuss the big challenges for marketers in a rapidly changing marketing landscape.

Sir Martin Sorrell is Executive Chairman of S4 Capital plc. The company is building a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients, and influencer brands.

S4 Capital plc merged MediaMonks, its content practice, and MightyHive, its programmatic practice, into Media.Monks in 2021. The integrated brand includes more than 25 other content, programmatic, media and data companies that have merged with Media.Monks over the course of the last three years. Currently Media.Monks is more than 7000 people and is present in 33 countries.

Sir Martin Sorrell was CEO of WPP for 33 years. When he left in April 2018, WPP had a market capitalisation of over £16 billion, revenues of over £15 billion, profits of approximately £2 billion and over 200,000 people in 113 countries.

Content recommendations:

Ted Levitt 1983: https://hbr.org/1983/05/the-globalization-of-markets

Hubert Joly 2021: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-on-books/author-talks-hubert-joly-on-unleashing-human-magic

Marion Harper: History of Media Agencys: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-quite-few-objects-40-marion-harpers-plane/1148591

Holy Trinity - Sir Martin Sorrell 2019: https://www.mediavillage.com/article/sir-martin-schools-me-on-data-creativity-and-the-holy-trinity-of-s4-capital/