Omnicom acquires Flywheel Digital for $835M to extend offerings across channels
By Felicia Nwosu
To deepen its sales and also integrate its offerings seamlessly across a plethora of channels, global leader in marketing communications, Omnicom has announced that it is paying about $835 million to acquire Flywheel Digital. The acquired platform is an ecommerce service enabling brands to sell more goods more efficiently across hundreds of digital marketplaces.
Elaborating on the acquisition, Omnicom Chief Executive Officer, John Wren said it was sold by Ascential, a UK company that owns the Cannes Lions festival. He explained that Omnicom, after its taking an initial structural consideration of the building capability, proceeded with the purchase due to the fact that Flywheel has already established a strong market positioning with strong competitive edge that would take years to catch up.
“This will make us stand apart. Flywheel, with a workforce of more than 2,000, provides services in retail commerce operations, media execution and market intelligence to more than 4500 brands.”
He projected optimistically that ecommerce sales worldwide are forecast to increase by 50%, reaching about $7 trillion by 2025.
“The acquisition of Flywheel significantly broadens our reach and influence in the rapidly expanding digital commerce and retail media sectors, two of the fastest-growing parts of the industry,” Wren said.
“Together, we will seamlessly integrate our offerings across retail and brand media, digital and in-store commerce, and CRM, ultimately delivering superior results for our clients,” he added.
The business posted about $300 million in revenue for the 12 months to June 30. Omnicom sees upside through organic growth and leveraging Flywheel solutions with Omnicom’s existing client base.
In a similar vein, Duncan Painter who currently serves as CEO of Ascential, as a testament to the positive picture envisaged over the payment of Flywheel solutions said the newly bought Flywheel will operate as a Practice Area within Omnicom and will be led by connecting Flywheel Commerce Cloud’s product and transaction data with Omni’s audience and behavioral data, adding that they we are poised to offer an end-to-end set of services that outpaces the competition.
“We aim to empower our clients to automate, optimise, and measure their digital commerce and media spend within an increasingly complex market-place. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.”
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