Publicis has completed its US$2.2 billion (A$3.9 billion) acquisition of LiveRamp and has celebrated with a video.
The deal was first announced in April and caused a great deal of consternation in the industry over data neutrality.
However, in the launch video, Publicis Groupe global CEO Arthur Sadoun and CSO Carla Serrano explained that the industry was looking at the deal the wrong way and that it would maintain its neutrality and interoperability.
“We are able to give our clients a competitive edge in what is a pivotal moment for them. In the age of AI, our clients need to run and reset at the same time. Driving impact today while fundamentally rebuilding for the agents of tomorrow,” Sadoun said.
“Right now, they are trapped between two bad options. Surrender their data to walled gardens for easy scale and lose control or hire an army of consultants to build custom pipes and lose time and a lot of money.
Now, that trade off ends because the combination of Publicis and LiveRamp gives our clients an entirely new model. An industry-first plug and play AI growth engine that they can fully own and control. This delivers instant business results and powers the agentic framework today and for the future.”
In a press release, Publicis said it will the acquisition will allow it to combine LiveRamp’s enterprise-grade collaboration platform with Epsilon’s identity.
Its clients, Publicis said, will be able to natively enrich their first-party data with RampID and Epsilon’s Identity, adding thousands of attributes and making billions of prospects addressable.
This data can then be activated directly across LiveRamp’s connected ecosystem of 25,000 publishers, 500 technology and data partners, retail networks, walled gardens, LLM integrations, and now Publicis’ own media network.
From day one, it added, clients will gain deeper customer and prospect intelligence, seamless cross-platform activation and closed-loop measurement of business outcomes, at scale and with unparalleled transparency.
It added that its enterprise-grade clean rooms and zero-copy capabilities enable secure data co-creation with ecosystem partners, unlocking differentiated, net-new insights to fuel clients’ proprietary AI models and build a sustained competitive advantage.
Clients, according to Publicis, will maintain full ownership and control of their data and intelligence. They will also co-create and own proprietary data and intelligence assets that compound in value over time. And clients will be able to choose their technology and partners and retain control of their connected data and AI network.
“Joining Publicis allows us to give clients a foundation to scale agentic marketing with complete data ownership and control,” said Scott Howe, LiveRamp’s CEO.
“This milestone is a testament to our extraordinary team, who turned a bold vision into the data collaboration network for the AI era.”
However, some in the market remain unconvinced, like Benoit Vatere, chief media and digital commerce officer of Liquid Death.
Posting on LinkedIn, Vatere said: “You should be worried Publicis Groupe and LiveRamp. Yes we will leave. I am first in line. Who in their right mind will let an holdco own your data and graph. Do you really think we are that stupid? All Liveramp competitors, tag yourself in the comment, business is coming your way.”
