Independent global media advisor, MediaSense, enters into an agreement to acquire PwC UK’s Marketing & Media Owner team, which will be its first major acquisition since Apiary Capital LLP acquired its majority stake in MediaSense.
The acquisition will enhance MediaSense’s scale, capabilities and offering to clients, bringing PwC UK’s world-class client relationships and skilled and experienced team into the business.
In a rapidly evolving, increasingly complex, data-driven industry, reliable and accurate measurement, governance and insight remain some of marketing’s biggest challenges, as borne out by MediaSense’s recent Media 2025 Wave Six report. The report also highlighted the significant organisational change taking place within clients, media owners and agencies and the wider media ecosystem. This deal marks the coming together of two world-class media advisory businesses to address these challenges – it will give clients access to wider capabilities, media expertise, analytics and insight.
The move will see over 50 people from PwC joining MediaSense, including PwC Partner, Sam Tomlinson, who will join the MediaSense management team as Chief Client Officer.
Private equity firm, Apiary Capital LLP, acquired a stake in MediaSense three years ago, specifically to support the independent global media advisor’s ambitious expansion plans, with this deal marking a major milestone on that journey.
Graham Brown, CEO MediaSense, commented: “This is an exciting development for MediaSense and an important step in our ambitious growth plans. The acquisition brings us a talented team with complementary skills, capabilities and experience, and an impressive portfolio of global clients. Uniting these two leading businesses under the MediaSense brand will further cement our position as the world’s foremost media advisory business.”
MediaSense was founded by Andy Pearch and Graham Brown in April 2009. Its specialist advisory and analytics teams empower the world’s leading brands to engineer greater productivity from their media investments and to design more agile and effective media operating models.
Sam Tomlinson, PwC UK Partner and Media Leader added: “We are very much looking forward to becoming part of MediaSense. Over a relatively short period they have become one of the preeminent and most respected operators in our field; we share the same values and have a common approach built to deliver exceptional service and value to our clients.”
This transaction relates only to PwC’s UK Marketing & Media Owner business.
Press Coverage: Campaign | City AM | The Media Leader | Yahoo Finance | Marketing Procurement iQ | More About Advertising | Research Live | New Digital Age | Consultancy UK | Consulting Magazine | Marketing Beat | Mediashotz | RealDeals | I-Com | The Media Leader Podcast
About MediaSense:
MediaSense are independent global media advisors. We build high performance media operating models and unlock value for the world’s leading brands. We achieve this by evaluating all aspects of our clients’ internal and external agency media operating model, and their media supply chain.
MediaSense delivers media programmes in three core areas: Models, Partners & Analytics.
Engineering Value. Navigating Change.
About PwC:
PwC’s Marketing and Media Owner practice acts as a neutral independent party committed to delivering trust and insight across the marketing ecosystem, helping brands transform their marketing operations and effectiveness through step-changes in value from their customer data, marketing technology and agency relationships.
PwC’s purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. A network of firms in 151 countries with over 364,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find out more by visiting us at www.pwc.com. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.