CANNES, France—Mark Penn is taking a victory lap.
After a profession that began in political polling and included stops on the White Home and Microsoft, Penn now oversees advertising and marketing holding firm Stagwell. He discovered Wednesday the corporate has cracked the Fortune 1000.
“We’re 947,” an excited Penn advised Adweek at Sport Seaside, the corporate’s first-ever Cannes Lions seaside activation.
“I began seven and a half years in the past, with me and an assistant,” Penn recalled. Stagwell took a leap ahead in 2020 when Penn took management of beleaguered MDC Companions. He merged the corporations and got down to construct a brand new sort of holding firm. He stated constructing a brief spot on the seashore is making an indelible impression on the greater than 5,000 who got here by means of this week.
“It’s been essential for Stagwell, as we develop, to get the sort of recognition for its mixture of creativity and expertise that we’ve been engaged on all these years,” he stated.
Stagwell by the numbers:
- 6 divisions
- 72 firms
- 12,000 workers
- $2.5 billion income
Penn, a longtime political operative, stated it’s what’s occurring in Washington that worries him lately.
You higher have in place an operation, since you might lose billions of {dollars} in a single day.
Mark Penn, CEO, Stagwell
“The most important problem recently has been the economic system. And when you have a Federal Reserve that’s making an attempt to sluggish the economic system down, I can’t say that that’s the most effective factor for advertising and marketing,” stated Penn, who suggested President Invoice Clinton throughout his second time period and was chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Senate marketing campaign. He understands properly what a divided nation can imply for a model.
Model danger in a divided nation
“It’s a 50/50 nation. And if you wish to analyze what you’re advertising and marketing and the way it would possibly get into politics, it’s a must to have a Democrat and it’s a must to have a Republican polling agency, and it’s a must to have a monetary communications specialist,” stated Penn, including that Stagwell simply opened a Danger and Status unit to just do that.
“There’s no substitute for a radical evaluation of the place your model is and the place your clients and your workers are when it comes to what your stability must be,” he stated. “On the White Home, we had an unimaginable system. We needed to get stuff out that day, nevertheless it was reviewed by all of the related coverage and different individuals. So that they didn’t use the incorrect phrase on the incorrect time. And corporations usually don’t have a system like that.”
