Stagwell’s Mark Penn is shooting for more government biz

According to Stagwell CEO and chairman Mark Penn, 72andSunny (which won Panera earlier this year) and Anomaly are “leading the way” in creativity at the media company and The Code and Theory Network has “created a lot of digital transformation” in AI.

“Both creativity and digital transformation have been quite strong,” Penn told Campaign. “The creative companies are finding an even greater need for bringing creativity out there in the marketplace.” Penn also shared plans to continue building government clients.

The CEO spoke with Campaign after Stagwell shared Q2 results earlier today. Net revenue totals to $598 million, which is an increase of 8% on the prior year. Creativity and communication took the lead, generating 44.2% of the Q2 net revenue.

Despite this growth, the holding company experienced a net loss of $5 million in Q2 compared to $3 million in the year prior.

New business 

According to Stagwell’s Q2 earnings report, the holding company experienced a 101% YoY increase in total number of clients (34).

“Our win rate is about a third [of the] pitches we participate in,” he said. “That shows we are doing a good job participating in pitches for which we qualify and have a reasonable chance of winning.”

Some new clients Stagwell won include Samsung, ServiceNow, Volkswagen and New Balance.

The holding company is also on track to earn more government business, according to the report. Penn told Campaign that governments are looking for more U.S.-based companies in the marketing world to work with, especially larger ones.

“It's quite typical for 10% or 15% of big agency business to help the government,” he explained. “But now that we've achieved this larger scale of nearly $3 billion in overall revenue, we've achieved this greater scope, [we] qualify for these kinds of contracts.”

AI deployment

When it comes to AI, Penn told Campaign that he looks at the ad industry by its various “marketing techniques”; how it changes in research, communications, creativity and production.

“We’re deploying AI as appropriate across each industry,” he said. “On the one hand, it creates efficiencies, but it also creates new products.”

Penn added that Code and Theory has both worked with tech companies and helped clients when it came to implementing AI. 

“We have the advantage that we’re smaller coming up,” he explained. “That gives us a greater ability to more rapidly deploy technology. Some of the other companies are bigger coming down, and that makes technological adaptation a lot harder.”