Read say: "Digital is now something like 30% of revenue [at WPP] and Paidcontent ranked us number seven in its list of the top global digital media businesses. What we are trying to do is digitise the group."
Mark Read, as chief executive of WPP Digital, part of UK-based communications services group WPP, is overseeing the entire group’s transition to the digital age, which it is pursuing through corporate venturing and other tools such as acquisition.
Read said: “I spend most of my time focused on our new media strategy. Digital is now something like 30% of revenue and Paidcontent ranked us number seven in its list of the top global digital media businesses. What we are trying to do is digitise the group. What we intend to do digitally is prepare our so-called traditional businesses for the digital future as well as develop new digital services. The strategy goes back to my predecessor, Eric Salama. It is something we have been doing for a while.”
The company has netted some successes under Read. Recently two companies it has backed, Omniture and Buddy Media, secured big exits. He said: “On Omniture we made a $35m gain while on Buddy Media we made around $60m. Not everything is successful. At the moment we don’t have a separate dedicated fund but are tightly integrated into our operating companies.”
However, a fund is in the works after WPP in June hired Tom Bedecarré, founder of agency AKQA, to run WPP Ventures alongside Read.
The company seeks to secure both financial and strategic returns. Read said: “Buddy Media clearly has been our biggest financial success. If you measure success by how we have connected a large company to a lot of the innovation that is going on, that is hard to measure.”
WPP seeks to plug its portfolio companies into important relationships. Read said: “We took Buddy Media into a meeting with Facebook, as our partner.”
Michael Lazerow, chief executive of Buddy Media, said: “Mark straddles the worlds of big advertising media, creativity and the creative agencies, and he is someone who understands all sides of the table. He helped us as a young company realise our dream. He can see things through young companies’ eyes and large agency networks. Business is not a zero-sum game. Everyone has to win to get value out of a partnership. With Mark, it was not just how can we benefit from the great relationship with Buddy Media, but how can we help Buddy Media?”
Read became chief executive of WPP Digital in March 2005. He has also been WPP’s director of strategy since 2002. He is a member of the supervisory board of HighCo and a director of CHI & Partners. He worked at WPP between 1989 and 1995. Prior to rejoining WPP in 2002, he was a principal at consultancy Booz-Allen & Hamilton and founded UK-based company WebRewards, which was sold to iPoints in 2002.
Lessons from the top Read said: “We have become keener to have financial investors involved alongside us. We have found with later-stage investments, it is easier to get the benefits. We are a large company with lots of large clients and we need some scale in our investments for them to have the ability to deal with our organisation.”
