TheChek News Flow

Advertising group says purchase shows industry still needs creative talent despite advances in AI

WPP, the London-based advertising group, has returned to the acquisition trail in the UK with the purchase of one of the country’s leading independent creative ad agencies.

New Commercial Arts was founded in 2020 by a team led by industry veterans James Murphy and David Golding, who sold their previous agency adam&eve to DDB in 2012. 

Mark Read, chief executive of WPP, said that the deal showed that even with the advances in artificial intelligence — which is increasingly used to replace some of the more traditional roles in the industry — advertising required creative talent. 

“Even where we are in a world of AI, we still need world-class creative ideas,” he told the Financial Times. “We are investing in our core creative offer. We have been quite quiet on the acquisition front.”

WPP last week won the mandate to provide media services to Amazon, one of the world’s biggest marketers, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. Shares rose about 5 per cent on the news.

The group will bring NCA into Ogilvy, its creative advertising arm, adding close to 100 staff in London and Scotland as well as large client contracts such as J Sainsbury in the UK. Other NCA clients include Vodafone, Peugeot, Paramount+ and Uber.

Murphy will become the chief executive of Ogilvy Group UK, which will retain the NCA name and team. Fiona Gordon has been promoted to global chief executive of advertising at Ogilvy.

WPP declined to comment on the value of the deal.

Read described NCA as “one of the UK’s most exciting new agencies with a great team, an impressive roster of clients and a track record of elevating beloved British brands”.

WPP’s last significant acquisition in the UK was more than a year ago, with the purchase of influencer marketing agency Goat, and it has since embarked on a rationalisation and restructuring of its network that has resulted in a streamlined organisation and fewer divisions. 

Last month, the group sold its controlling stake in public relations group FGS Global to private equity partner KKR for $767mn in cash.

Murphy, who began his career as a graduate trainee with Ogilvy, is a well-known UK advertising executive as founder of adam&eve, which was feted for its work for retailer John Lewis.

The deal reflects the polarisation of the advertising agency world between smaller groups that can specialise in certain sectors or creative niches, and the larger networks that are investing hundreds of millions in new AI technology that promises to revolutionise how the industry works.

Murphy told the FT that it was increasingly tough for mid-sized advertising companies that lacked the scale to invest in capabilities such as AI.

“The truth is that as New Commercial Arts, we’re never going to be able to lead the thinking and the innovation on [AI]. Whereas plugged into WPP, we can be part of a group that are and there are obviously benefits in terms of the quality of the work that we’ll do.”

He added: “In our industry, there are two really good things to be: one is small, the other is big, and that’s become much more pronounced with the impact that technology and data is having on the industry.”

Indian food delivery startup Swiggy is considering increasing the fresh issue component of its initial public offering by $150 million, aiming to raise a total of up to $1.4 billion in what is shaping up to be one of the largest public listings in India this year.

The Bengaluru-headquartered startup will ask shareholders to approve raising up to ₹50 billion ($600 million) through a fresh issue of shares, up from the previously planned $450 million, according to a 15-page notice for a meeting with shareholders that was filed late last week.

Swiggy, valued at $10.7 billion in its last fundraise in early 2022, is considering going ahead with its plan to sell about $800 million worth of shares from existing investors in the IPO, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The startup is seeking a valuation of about $15 billion in the IPO, the people said.

Swiggy has scheduled the shareholder meeting for October 3 to obtain consent for its revised IPO plans, which include both the enlarged fresh issue and an offer for sale by existing shareholders. Indian news outlet Entrackr first reported the notice.

With investors like Prosus Ventures, SoftBank and Accel among its backers, Swiggy is among the leading food-delivery and quick-commerce startups in India. It reported revenue of $1.4 billion in the financial year ended March 2024. Its quick commerce service, Instamart, was seeing annual run-rate gross merchandise value of $1 billion, the company said at the time.

The startup faces stiff competition from Zomato, Tata-owned BigBasket, and General Catalyst-backed Zepto. “We see quick-commerce industry going through a phase of increased competition in the next 6-12 months,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note to investors late last month.

“Top 3 platforms are entering into each other’s turf. In last 6-12 months, we have seen the top 3 peers increase assortment, lease bigger dark stores and hence cater to higher demand (partly by moving part of e-com market to quick com). As users are not price sensitive and already have wider assortment options, it’s not easy even for these top 3 to gain traction in other’s stronghold,” the note read.

Weight loss shots like Ozempic and Wegovy have been linked to 162 deaths in the United States over the past six years, according to the Daily Mail.

These casualties are listed in the FDA’s FAERS (FDA Adverse Event Reporting System) database, which stores reports on adverse reactions, safety concerns and quality complaints about drugs after they are marketed.

These reports can be submitted by medical staff, manufacturers and patients themselves.

While none of the deaths have proven to be explicitly caused by semaglutide injections, reports indicate they were a factor in the fatalities.

According to the report, instances of death where these drugs are mentioned have risen 40% over the past six months.

This rise is reflected in a series of publicized complications, including Juanita Gantt, a Pennsylvania mom who is suing the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, claiming she nearly died from taking the prescription drugs and wasn’t properly warned about potentially harrowing side effects.

Last year, an Australian woman who took Ozempic to shed a few pounds before her daughter’s wedding died from gastrointestinal illness her family claims was caused by the medication.

Since 2018, the FDA’s system has recorded 62,000 reactions to weight loss drugs like Ozempic. The bulk of these reactions were recorded in the past two years following the explosion in popularity of semaglutides.

Within the FAERS database, a total of 10,000 reactions were classified as “serious,” or where a patient was hospitalized or suffered from a life-threatening event.

Ozemipc has not been FDA-approved for weight management but is approved to help people with type 2 diabetes. However, doctors have been prescribing it “off-label” in recent years due to the surge in popularity for weight loss.

In March 2024, Wegovy became “the first weight loss medication to also be approved to help prevent life-threatening cardiovascular events in adults with cardiovascular disease and either obesity or overweight,” according to a press release by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

These drugs were originally created for diabetics because they stimulate insulin release and reduce blood sugar after eating. However, in recent years, a serious surge of people have been using the drugs to lose weight.

Ozempic warns of side effects on its website, like pancreatic inflammation, low blood sugar, kidney problems, serious allergic reactions, gallbladder problems and more.

In 2023, the FDA updated the Ozempic label to acknowledge complaints of blocked intestines in some people who have taken the medication.

Commonly reported side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain. Ozempic has also been linked to vision loss and an increase in “reckless behavior.”

Recent research shows users tend to quit taking the drugs if they are frustrated by the side effects.

Serious side effects and death have not discouraged people from partaking. A recent Gallup poll revealed that six percent of all U.S. adults, approximately 15.5 million people, have tried Ozempic or other brand-name medications, with three percent using these meds specifically for weight loss.

Summary

BERLIN, (Reuters) - Germany's government announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country's land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle irregular migration and protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism.

The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement - the European Schengen zone - will start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.

The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Faeser said, without adding details on the controversial and legally fraught move.

The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government is seeking to seize back the initiative from the opposition far-right and conservatives, who have seen support rise as they tap into voter worries about stretched public services, integration and security.

"We are strengthening internal security and continuing our hard line against irregular migration," Faeser said, noting the government had notified the European Commission and neighboring countries of the intended controls.

Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people in August.

The AfD earlier this month became the first far-right party since World War Two to win a state election, in Thuringia, after campaigning heavily on the issue of migration.

Polls show it is also voters' top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.

Scholz and Faeser's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year's federal election.

"The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here," said Marcus Engler at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.

A backlash had been building in Germany ever since it took in more than a million people mostly fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria during the 2015/2016 migrant crisis, migration experts say.

It reached a tipping point in the country of 84 million people after it automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia's 2022 invasion even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.

Since then, the German government has agreed tighter deportation rules and resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country, despite suspending deportations after the Taliban took power in 2021 due to human rights concerns.

Berlin last year also announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Those and controls on the border with Austria had allowed it to return 30,000 migrants since October 2023, it said on Monday.

Faeser said a new model would enable the government to turn back many more - but it could not talk about the model before confidential negotiations with the conservatives.

The controls could test European unity if they lead to German authorities requesting other countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.

Under EU rules countries in the Schengen area, which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.

Germany shares its more than 3,700-km-long (2,300 miles) land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Austria's Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not take in any migrants turned away by Germany at the border.

"There's no room for manoeuvre there," he said.

The measures may not immediately result in many more migrants being turned away at the border, but they could result in more returns to other European countries down the line, as well as acting as a deterrent, said Susan Fratzke at the Migration Policy Institute.

The number of asylum applications in Germany already fell 21.7% in the first eight months of the year, according to government statistics.