Behind Media.Monks’ rebrand—Martin Sorrell on the name change and what’s next

S4 Capital’s Media.Monks is changing its name to simply Monks as the company looks to simplify its structure and bring more attention to all aspects of its offerings, according to S4 Capital Founder and Executive Chairman Martin Sorrell. The decision comes three years after S4 combined all of its companies into the Media.Monks brand. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Monks will now consist of two practices: marketing services and technology services, both of which are powered by Monks.Flow, the company’s AI platform that consists of different AI capabilities in copywriting, media buying and other areas. The marketing practice will include services such as creative, content, performance marketing, digital and production, while the technology practice will consist of services around data, digital transformation and product engineering. The two offerings will also be underpinned by a consulting group that will provide services ranging from strategy to implementation alongside both groups. Wesley ter Haar and Bruno Lambertini will lead marketing services as co-CEOs and Brady Brim-DeForest will act as the CEO of technology services. Brim-DeForest's previous title was CEO, Formula.Monks, while ter Haar and Lambertini were co-CEOs, content. Sorrell said the name change reflects a “more general description of what we do,” admitting that the previous name could be “confusing” for people who thought of Monks as only being able to handle traditional agency services such as media and production. “It’s not a restructuring, it’s an evolution of what we do,” Sorrell said. “Increasingly, [clients] are looking for simplification from their agencies.” Sorrell said that clients such as Google, SC Johnson and BMW take advantage of both marketing and technology services at the company. Sorrell is also looking for this simplification to improve performance for S4 which he admitted had a “difficult” 2023. S4’s first quarter net revenue this year dropped by 11.7%. Media.Monks, which at one point had around 9,000 employees, currently has 7,600 workers. Despite these difficulties, Monks came away with a big win this year when it was added to General Motors' roster to essentially manage mass personalized content development at scale with the use of its AI capabilities. This new organizational structure is also meant to more easily work with clients that have an interest in this type of work, said Sorrell. Also read: Winners and losers of the GM review “GM is probably the most revolutionary [AI] use case that we’ve seen in the industry so far,” Sorrell said. “I can’t think of anything else that anybody has done in the U.S. or elsewhere, which is as innovative or revolutionary, as this, which involves a huge change.” The industry as a whole has been beefing up its AI capabilities, in part to provide this type of personalized AI offering. As more businesses opt for this type of AI work, which is meant to save costs, it will likely also change compensation structures for agencies from a more traditional time-based model to an asset-based model, which Monks is doing with GM. AI marketing blog How brands are using ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and other tools Read more here

Behind Media.Monks’ rebrand—Martin Sorrell on the name change and what’s next

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