https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/po12 Sep 2018 21:22
Victor Knaap (pictured, above right) is insistent when Campaign asks the chief executive of MediaMonks why the Dutch content production company agreed to join Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital for an estimated €300m (£266m). "We didn’t sell!" he says.
Knaap and his business partner, Wesley ter Haar (pictured, above left), point out the deal is a merger. They have shares in Sorrell’s new parent company, rather than an earn-out, and will have a say on strategy and M&A thanks to seats on the board.
Ter Haar, who co-founded MediaMonks in 2001, a couple of years before Knaap joined, says of their relationship with Sorrell: "We’re entrepreneurial together."
MediaMonks already has 11 offices in 10 countries, 750 staff, clients including Google, Netflix, Shell and Johnson & Johnson, turnover of €110m and, significantly, one P&L. Knaap looks after Europe and Asia while ter Haar oversees the US and Latin America.
They plan to move into media buying, data and analytics as well as new markets, such as Germany and India. They also want to beef up the UK operation, which they admit has been "a little bit under the radar", and have hired Dutchman Martin Verdult, previously of Ogilvy Shanghai, to be managing director in London.
Sorrell’s swoop for MediaMonks looks to be one of the defining deals of the year – and not only because he set up S4 Capital so quickly after leaving WPP and beat his old company in the race for the production firm.
MediaMonks is a creator of agile and dynamic digital content, finding itself in a sweet spot that potentially gives it an advantage over traditional ad agencies.
Jonathan Davis, managing director of Clarity, the corporate advisory firm that worked on the sale of MediaMonks, says: "Content production has fundamentally become a more strategic capability. There is so much more of it required across so many different channels and platforms. Brands have found that if they have an agency layer between them and the content, delivery risks becoming inefficient and not agile.
"The broader trend, if you look at the larger digital content production platforms, such as Stink and MediaMonks, is that they have significantly more direct-to-brand work than they did three or four years ago."
A platform, not an agency
Knaap and ter Haar stress MediaMonks is a platform, not an agency. "We integrate creativity, technology and production and extend our ideas through data and make [digital] platforms," ter Haar explains. "We create more efficiency for clients, and at a higher level because there’s a singular vision behind it."
They believe silos such as creative, media, PR and so on don’t make sense. "It’s the same customer you’re talking to" across every touchpoint during the "customer decision journey", Knaap says. "All of the touchpoints need content. We create that content."
The key is to be flexible and agile because that’s what brands want. Knaap says more clients are bringing marketing services in-house but t
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