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Sir Martin Sorrell announces plan to rebrand MightyHive and MediaMonks as a single brand at Mumbrella360

A plan to rebrand S4 Capital’s MediaMonks and MightyHive and create a “unitary structure” has been announced by Sir Martin Sorrell in a live interview at Mumbrella360: Reconnected.

Sir Martin Sorrell speaking to Mumbrella’s head of content, Damian Francis

Speaking in a fireside chat, the S4 Capital founder and executive chairman told Mumbrella the plan is that the rebrand will coincide with the 20th anniversary of MediaMonks next year and create a “unitary structure – one P&L and no BS.”

“In 2021, [an] objective will be to reinforce that unitary structure and you will see us rebrand the company on the back of MediaMonks’ 20th anniversary which next year will bring,” Sorrell said.

“We have two operations as I said, practices around content, and data and analytics and digital media. Our objective has always been to bring MediaMonks and MightyHive even closer together. Those have been the pivotal parts.

“What we have done, actually since 2018, June – July of ‘18, is we brought MediaMonks into S4 – it was a private company, we listed in September of 2018. At the end of 2018 we brought MightyHive into the family, so we had our two pillars established.”

Sorrell continued, “In ‘19 and ‘20 we have added seven content operations and seven data and analytics and digital media operations each to MediaMonks and MightyHive and we will be bringing those together in a more unitary way. We are working through that but we are really moving towards a much more single branded approach. We think that is the right way to go.”

Sorrell revealed the plan to rebrand MightyHive and MediaMonks in 2021

S4 Capital recently released a buoyant Q3 update when it announced revenue up 53% to £86.4 m, gross profit up 79% to £75.3m, Q3 like-for-like revenue up 13% and Q3 like-for-like gross profit up 23%.

The Asia Pacific component of the business also reported strong growth from a smaller base, with gross profit up almost 83% to £7.3m in Q3 and up over 26% like-for-like. Year-to-date gross profit grew over 85% to £18.4 million and like-for-like was up over 21%.

With the announcement of the planned rebrand, Sorrell also suggested headcount growth was expected as well.

“Our headcount on an organic basis, like-for-like basis, has risen by 26% in the first nine months of this year and we are hiring 300 more people for BMW/Mini in Europe, and for the other activities we see happening for the end of the year we will be hiring another 300 people. I anticipate we will be at about 3,300 people in fairly short order,” he said.

He also revealed further information about the strategy behind the plans for 2021, saying it will come through what the business calls “merger”.

“We are anti-acquisition, that was a model more akin to the last millennium than it is to this millennium because it breathes too much fragmentation,” Sorrell said.

“What we are looking for is unity of effort and our mission is to build that new age, new era model. A new advertising services model, and disrupt the old. We think the ad holding companies are no longer fit for purpose and past their sell-by date. What they are doing at the moment, these sort of ‘management by spreadsheet’ sitting in London, Paris or New York and operating the companies by diktat with a stroke of the pen, is disrupting the lives of thousands of people.”

Sorrell also detailed the fourth and fifth of what the business calls “whoppers” and the plan to attract more in the near future. S4 Capital’s definition of a “whopper” is a client with $20m plus in revenue. One of S4 Capital’s goals is 20 by 20 – 20 clients with $20m in revenue plus.

“Four is an FMCG company which we are building our business with, again, under NDA, and number five is Facebook. All of those are what we call whoppers now – $20m of revenue plus,” Sorrell explained.

“We’ve identified another five for next year and as we exit ’21 we will be identifying another 10, so this is a long term objective for the company. To put it in perspective it means replicating our revenue base at the beginning of this year, which was $400m, and at the end of the year it will be around $500m US. That’s revenue. Gross profit slightly less reflecting the pass through costs.”

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