news & views

Disruptive new era/new age digital advertising and marketing services company joins Corporate Supporters programme launched by one of the City’s most innovative livery companies.

City of London, 27th April, 2021 - The Worshipful Company of Marketors, also known as the Marketors’ Company, has announced that S4 Capital, the new age/new era digital advertising and marketing services company founded by Sir Martin Sorrell, has become a member of the livery company’s fast-growing and exclusive Corporate Supporters programme.

Participation in the programme will enable S4 Capital to nominate five of its ambitious young executives to enjoy the full range of benefits of one of the City’s most forward-looking livery companies, with a membership that encapsulates both the experience of hugely successful marketers and ‘digital native’ future industry leaders. The announcement follows Sir Martin’s installation as an Honorary Liveryman of the Company last month (February).

Sir Martin said: “We are delighted to team up with the Marketors’ Company, who share our belief in innovation, disruptive change and a strong commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Becoming a Corporate Supporter of the Marketors’ Company is in sync with S4 Capital’s aim to create a new age, new-era model. I’m confident that over the course of the programme benefits will flow in both directions.”

The benefits for the new Associate Freemen and Liverymen nominated by S4 Capital include substantial career-development opportunities, high-profile speaker and networking events, formal and informal social and charitable events, along with ceremonial activities in the heart of the City of London. The Associate Freemen and Liverymen can also participate in the Marketors’ Company’s Outreach initiatives, offering professional marketing insights to community organisations on a pro bono basis.

John Farrell, Master of The Worshipful Company of Marketors said: “S4 Capital is a wonderful addition to our Corporate Supporters programme, confirming that the Marketors’ Company is very much about new ideas and the future, respectful of our livery heritage without being confined by it. I have no doubt the executives from S4 Capital who participate will make bring energy and fresh thinking to the Marketors’ Company. We are extremely grateful to S4 Capital and Sir Martin for their support and participation.”

The Marketors’ Company’s Corporate Supporters programme has been created to increase access to the Company and City Livery for corporate organisations and their most talented marketing professionals. This is part of the Marketors’ Company’s commitment to increasing and diversifying its membership, cementing its position as the pre-eminent livery company in the marketing world. In November last year James Hambro & Partners, the independently-owned wealth management group become one of the programme’s founding members.

For further information about how to become a Corporate Supporter, please contact Trevor Brignall, Senior Warden, The Worshipful Company of Marketors, Plaisterers’ Hall, One London Wall, London, EC2Y 5JU or email: clerk@marketors.org.

About S4 Capital

S4 Capital plc (SFOR.L) is the tech-led, new age/new era digital advertising and marketing services company, established by Sir Martin Sorrell in May 2018.

Its strategy is to build a purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands. This will be achieved initially by integrating leading businesses in two practice areas: Data & digital media and Content, along with an emphasis on "faster, better, cheaper" executions in an always-on consumer-led environment, with a unitary structure.

Digital is by far the fastest-growing segment of the advertising market. S4 Capital estimates that in 2020 digital accounted for over 50% (for the first time) or $290 billion of total global advertising spend of $525 billion (excluding over $500 billion of trade promotion marketing, the primary target of the Amazon advertising platform), and projects that by 2022 this share will grow to approximately 60% and by 2024 to approximately 66%, accelerated by the impact of covid-19.

S4 Capital combined with MediaMonks, the leading AdAge A-listed creative digital content production company led by Victor Knaap and Wesley ter Haar, in July 2018 and with MightyHive, the market-leading digital media solutions provider for future thinking marketers and agencies, led by Peter Kim and Christopher S. Martin, in December 2018.

In April 2019, MightyHive combined with ProgMedia to expand operations into Latin America and MediaMonks acquired film studio Caramel Pictures to expand content studio capabilities. In June 2019, MediaMonks announced a planned combination with Australia-based BizTech, a leading marketing transformation and customer experience company. In August 2019, MediaMonks combined with Amsterdam-based digital influencer marketing agency IMA. In October 2019, MediaMonks combined with Firewood Marketing, the largest digital marketing agency based in Silicon Valley, that was recently ranked, along with MediaMonks and Circus (see below), as one of the fastest growing agencies by Adweek, and MightyHive combined with award-winning UK-based digital analytics, biddable media and data science company ConversionWorks and South Korea-based data and analytics consultancy MightyHive Korea. In November 2019, MediaMonks announced its combination with Delhi-based content creation and production company WhiteBalance (completed in August 2020 - the delay due to necessary merger clearance procedures) and then with fully integrated digital agency Circus Marketing in January 2020 (completed in March 2020).

In May 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with Digodat, one of the leading Latin American data and analytics consultancies, and in June 2020, MightyHive announced its combination with Lens10, a leading Australian digital strategy and analytics consultancy. In July 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with Orca Pacific, a market leading full-service Amazon agency and boutique consultancy firm based in Seattle. In August 2020, MightyHive announced a combination with London-based Brightblue, an econometric and media optimisation consultancy. In September 2020, MediaMonks announced its combination with Dare.Win, expanding its geographical presence to France. In January 2021, MediaMonks announced its combination with integrated creative, technology and media agency Decoded Advertising, Shanghai based creative agency TOMORROW and Stuttgart based automotive specialist STAUD STUDIOS. MightyHive also announced its combination with integrated digital performance marketing agency Metric Theory. In February 2021, MightyHive acquired the assets of Datalicious, a leading Google Marketing Platform, Google Cloud and Google Analytics partner in Asia Pacific. In March 2021, MediaMonks announced it had entered into a conditional agreement in relation to a combination of MediaMonks with Toronto-based design and experience agency, Jam3.

On 16 July 2020, S4 Capital announced the successful placing of 36,766,642 new ordinary shares at a price of 315p raising approximately £116 million gross proceeds which will be used for further expansion and combination purposes.

Victor Knaap, Wesley ter Haar, Pete Kim, Christopher Martin, Peter Rademaker and Scott Spirit all joined the S4 Capital Board as Directors. The S4 Capital Board also includes Rupert Faure Walker, Paul Roy, Daniel Pinto, Sue Prevezer, Elizabeth Buchanan, Naoko Okumoto, Margaret Ma Connolly and Miles Young.

The Company now has over 4,400 people in 31 countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific and a current market capitalisation of approximately £3.1 billion (c.$4.27 billion), and would rank around the FTSE 150. It achieved Unicorn status in a little over one year, unique in the advertising and marketing services industry.

Sir Martin was CEO of WPP for 33 years, building it from a £1 million "shell" company in 1985 into the world's largest advertising and marketing services company with a market capitalisation of over £16 billion on the day he left. Today its market capitalisation is £11.75 billion. Prior to that Sir Martin was Group Financial Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Company Plc for nine years.

About the Marketors’ Company

The Worshipful Company of Marketors (‘the Marketors’ Company’) is a City livery company that promotes marketing as a force for economic and public benefit by encouraging excellence in its education and practice. Promoting the view that marketing is a strategic function of the board, the Company advocates that marketing benefits everyone and promotes the profession through charity work, supporting start-ups and educational establishments, and its own mentoring, educational awards and bursary programmes.

The Marketors' Company holds traditional values and delivers them in a modern context by offering guidance in the form of research leadership and promoting discussion and debate between members, other livery companies, the wider marketing profession, government and the City.

Ranked 90th in order of precedence of livery companies, the Marketors’ Company was established in 1975 and become a livery company in 1977. Its membership is drawn from senior marketing professionals, marketing services experts and marketing academics and numbers over 350.

The Marketors’ Company is one of the most active liveries for social and business events, offering its members a wide variety of networking occasions and opportunities to give back to the community. The livery supports the city of London and its mayoralty and was incorporated by Royal Charter in 2010.

Press contact:

Joanna Elliott

Whiteoaks International

+44 (0)1252 727313

Email: joannae@whiteoaks.co.uk