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I doubt S4 are in any hurry for the SP to shoot up whilst they are in buy back phase.

For clarity Amazon Prime Video

Does anyone see any prospects with Amazon Prime advertising for S4 ?

I don't know enough about it.

WPP announced last week that they are investing £250m each year on AI. So they see this is the right strategy.

Mark Read stated to Reuters and others-

"AI is transforming our industry and we see it as an opportunity not a threat," he said. "We firmly believe that AI will enhance, not replace, human creativity," he said on Tuesday."

If S4 is providing AI tools to Whoppers to create some in-house work I would hope they under some kind of user license or subscription agreement I can't immediately think how they would get repeat revenue otherwise.

Could these big buys be the share buy backs.

What's annoying is that random non evidenced based comments by the likes of Sanyam and others spooks potential new S4 retail investors and puts them off buying or those that have just bought in doubting their research and selling.

MaryBr190

It's posts like this that keep you in the top 3 of LSE posters popularity table. Rounded and sensible.

Exactly.....Where's the pump

Today was always going to be volatile and unpredictable but a 5% drop at the end was a shock as you say NigeCo. I guess just like the US today we may tomorrow make a recovery once the post mortem and analysis of the BofE wording has been completed.

I think part of WPP's downside today is partly due to the recent 'smoke and mirrors ' announcements. WPP has merged its agencies to leave 6 core agencies. This will inevitably result in reduced head count . Something S4 did last year and is ahead of the curve in this area. WPP's new targets are based on internal efficiencies. Not gaining market share.

Note extract below from AJ Bell yesterday

'Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'Advertising agency WPP’s move to upgrade medium-term financial targets is encouraging but is based on achieving cost cutting not on improved momentum in the business.'

Could it take 2024 t0 get WPP to where S4 are now ?

Redwineday

Agree. Makes you wonder why they have S4 on their watchlist. Unless they are hoping to get some kind of schadenfreude-gasm.

Auson

I agree. I'm surprised they are still hanging around. The risk for them

must be increasing. We will inevitably see some pull back on some days as profits are taken but I would think (hope) the trajectory will be upwards from now on particularly as the year progresses.

Auson

Thanks for this analysis.

At the moment. WPP are now in the red and lost all of this mornings gains.

NigeCo

That story was on Bloomberg last week, though you may well be right. Not sure now.

Up 6.5% on the open on AI strategy???

Probably just a bit of profit taking. SP up 16% in past 5 days, some will grab that and bank it. Let's see how the day finishes.

Redwineday

Apologies. For clarity I meant Ajaz Ahmed to be an employee or ambassador/evangelist. He knows his stuff, hence the digital business he built up 25 years ago and being the richest person in the UK under the age of 30 crystalises that. I can only guess but I would think he has a good relationship with SMS

And who is Claire Enders?

Companies aren't going to bring marketing in house just because of AI. Its a tool not a replacement. And Its not their core businesses, it would still take a year or three to set up internally, You can't just key in a marketing brief to an AI package and expect a marketing campaign to pop out. PC World would be selling marketing packages off the shelf. Ridiculous. And that example given on this BB of Cadbury's and the drumming gorilla is an excellent example of how you need human input. . And it probably doesn't take into account religious and cultural differences. I remember working on the launch of Microsoft's first XBOX games console in EMEA and we were shown reels by various agencies who were pitching for the business, one was the Stella Artois advert with the Germans in France during WIi, we found it funny but the French and German colleagues didn't. Would AI pick that up. Doubt it.

IMO AI will speed things up but that's about it otherwise the likes of AKQA would be up for sale.

We used AKQA before it became part of WPP for our new media/digital advertising at Microsoft. Ajaz Ahmed (pronounced Ajar) was listed in the Times rich list at just the age of 26 He is a visionary in the digital space and If SMS could persuade him to join SFOR that would be a real industry coup.

The timing of today's buy back scheme I would hope cements SFOR's belief that we are now at bottom. I'm wondering if the next key moment or boost will be a Direcror(s) buy on or around the final 2023 figures released on 27th March ( I'm assuming this is not a closed period). Then after that a rate cut in the summer to give a further SP boost.