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To help brands better leverage the purchase power of online communities, Reddit announces a long-term consultative partnership with the world’s largest marketing communications company, WPP.
The partnership, a first of its kind for Reddit, will be led by Reddit’s global Agency Development team and let the platform tap into commerce and technology expertise across WPP and its media agencies within GroupM through quarterly advisory meetings, during which teams will consult on Reddit’s commerce strategy and help it to incorporate insights and intelligence from across the WPP network.
In turn, WPP will receive a first look at Reddit’s commerce solutions with early access to alpha and beta tests so both companies can collaborate on joint products to take to shared clients.
The joint partnership will also include a joint research piece, to test the effectiveness of future commerce products on Reddit, along with a training program through Reddit Ads Formula.
The partnership comes as Reddit’s Global Agency Development team keeps growing. Recently, London-based Susanne Schmid joined from Facebook where she was Regional Agency Lead and will now serve as Reddit’s Global Agency Lead for WPP.
Additionally, former VP, Global Head of Partnerships at Verizon Media, John Baylon has also joined the team as Regional Agency Lead, EMEA, and will be responsible for servicing all holding companies across EMEA in a newly-developed role.
Reddit global executive vice president and president of advertising Harold Klaje said in a statement, “Online communities are not new, but they have emerged throughout the pandemic as an integral part of the commerce mix thanks to the highly influential role they play in the consumer path to purchase. I am excited to further strengthen our relationship with WPP and its suite of clients as we continue to collaborate and build together, tapping into the holding company’s impressive expertise and working toward mutually beneficial outcomes for our advertising partners.”
GroupM vp, managing partner and global head of social Amanda Grant added, “Being a part of the Reddit Product Council in the past year has given us a seat at the table in terms of early product design, leading to better aligned product development and advertiser interest. The partnership brings key stakeholders in early enough to steer concepts, rather than confirm formed hypothesis. GroupM and WPP are approaching commerce evolution much more methodically with our partners, as our performance expertise helps to connect user behaviors, to platform utility and, finally, advertiser need. We are looking forward to richer contributions and partnership with Reddit.”
