WPP Acquisition of SRDS Leaves List Executives Underwhelmed
The acquisition of Standard Rate and Data Services (SRDS) by the advertising agency conglomerate WPP Group is unlikely to have any substantial impact on list brokerage and management companies, according to list industry analysts.
London-based WPP announced on Tuesday that it would be acquiring SRDS in a deal that’s expected to close by the end of this year. It’s part of larger swap of assets between Nielsen Co. the owner of SRDS and WPP.
The SRDS list directory services used by list brokers and managers represent only a portion of the media services offered by SRDS. Moreover, this highly specialized sector is like a blip compared to WPP, an ad agency holding company with a presence in 100 countries and in excess than 100,000 employees.
WPP owns some the biggest names in the agency world. Its holdings include Grey Global Group, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Young & Rubicam and JWT. The list of advertising and marketing services companies owned by WPP is nearly three pages long.
While some list brokers may be concerned that agencies owned by WPP would be tempted to bypass brokers and place list orders directly with list managers accessible through SRDS, such fears are probably unfounded, say veteran list industry executives.
List services have never been a focus of direct marketing agencies and there’s no reason to believe that is going change, says Jay Schwedelson corporate vice president of Worldata.
“In many cases agencies outsource list brokerage services. List companies provide services for agencies. We don’t compete with agencies for list business,” Schwedelson says. “The list business is under the radar for them.”
List brokers provide specialized services and have specialized knowledge that WPP agencies simply don’t have and they recognize the value in working with established list companies, says Geoff Batrouney, executive vice president of Estee Marketing Inc.
“I’d be worried if InfoGroup was acquiring SRDS, but I’m not concerned about WPP, says Geoff Batrouney, executive vice president of Estee Marketing Inc. I don’t think there’s anything unfair or threatening about it. If I was worried about WPP acquiring SRDS that would presuppose that agencies knew something about the list business, but they don’t.”
