Accenture Song acquires Superdigital as marketing shifts social-first

Dive Transient:

• Accenture Tune, the advertising providers division of consultancy Accenture, has acquired social-first company Superdigital, in accordance with a press launch. Monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed. 
• Based in 2013, Superdigital is credited for its experience in social technique, group constructing and content material manufacturing, with a specialization in areas like short-form video. The Florida-based store has over 40 staff and has labored with purchasers together with Welch’s, Microsoft and Nerf. 
• The acquisition responds to social media’s rising significance for CMOs in addition to the influence of synthetic intelligence (AI) on the trade. Deep-pocketed entrepreneurs like Unilever are beginning to shift extra vital spend to social and influencers to maintain tempo with fashionable customers. 

Dive Perception:

Social media is nothing new, however the demand for social-first advertising methods tailor-made to platforms like TikTok continues to climb. Accenture Tune sees buying Superdigital as a technique to refine its capabilities in areas corresponding to group constructing and crafting native social content material because it seems to be to remain forward of the trade curve. 

The rise of generative AI has additional sped up the already quick tempo of social, with CMOs feeling strain to provide extra content material, faster, whereas avoiding pitfalls usually related to the nascent know-how. Linear TV, as soon as the principle lever for mass attain, additionally stays on a downward trajectory and largely ignored by the dear younger cohorts manufacturers wish to win over, like Gen Z.

“For a lot of of our purchasers, social media is the place their audiences see them first. Main with social is crucial to constructing connections, experiences and driving demand,” mentioned Sean Lackey, advertising observe lead for the Americas at Accenture Tune, in a press release across the deal. “Superdigital brings added power in areas the place our purchasers are searching for a bonus — on the intersection of creativity, information, and know-how — and enhances our imaginative and prescient for advertising reinvention.”  

Current Superdigital activations embrace a bodega-style pop-up for Welch’s in New York that featured a hidden speakeasy, the kind of expertise that manufacturers hope will get customers posting on their private feeds. Microsoft, a frequent associate, lately enlisted the company for an influencer-heavy marketing campaign selling the advantages of latest PCs souped up with its Copilot+ AI.  

Different company networks have leveraged M&A to counterpoint their know-how in social- and influencer-led advertising. Publicis Groupe final yr acquired Influential, on the time the most important influencer advertising platform by income, for $500 million. In Could, the group additionally snapped up Captiv8, which focuses on providers like influencer expertise administration, measurement and social commerce. 

Accenture constructed out Tune, previously Accenture Interactive, by means of an aggressive method to dealmaking that reached its peak within the late 2010s, when the unit bought artistic darling Droga5 for $475 million. The corporate grew to become the poster baby for the rising encroachment of consultancies on conventional advert company work as purchasers sought extra experience in tech-enabled transformation. Tune’s newer acquisitions embrace CRM-focused agency Limitless, digital product firm Work & Co and Brazilian artistic company Soko.

Droga5’s founder, David Droga, introduced plans to step away from main Tune earlier this yr. Ndidi Oteh, an Accenture veteran, is slated to develop into its subsequent CEO on Sept. 1.