Do the first large marketing M&A moves of 2025 indicate a trend for the year? Tony Walford writes in The Drum

17th January 2025

From Getty acquiring Shutterstock to Bauer buying Clear Channel and Publicis bringing together Leo Burnett Global and Publicis Worldwide, it’s been a busy start to the year for M&A. Green Square’s Tony Walford tells us what to expect in the weeks and months ahead.

What a start to 2025! Trump back in, economic and political turmoil in the UK, France and Germany and the Middle East (but hopefully now resolved) and Russia-Ukraine continuing to present challenges, albeit Trump reckons he can fix the latter in a stroke. Given this background, it’s understandable to anticipate a slowdown in investment and M&A whilst people wait to see what the US administration will bring and also how the UK economy pans out.

That said, hot on the heels of the Omnicom-IPG announcement at the very back end of 2024, this year started with a couple of significant acquisitions. Getty is acquiring Shutterstock in a merger that will value the combined company at $3.7bn and Bauer is buying Clear Channel Europe-North for $625m. Given current global macroeconomic uncertainty, the question is whether the nature of these three deals points to a potential trend in M&A for the coming year.

While trying to predict this year’s theme so early on would only set me up to look a fool (no comments please), there is a common thread across these three transactions, which is consolidation. And as I write, the news of Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide coming together under the name Leo is reverberating – it’s not M&A, but it’s certainly consolidation.

There’s been plenty of press comment around Omnicom-IPG and its proposed restructuring, so there’s no need to repeat that here. That’s consolidation in its purest form in an increasingly competitive and changing market… two legacy global networks huddling together to keep warm, cutting costs and aiming to knock Publicis off its recently claimed position as ‘Top Dog’ (while the Top Dog itself begins internal huddling together under Leo). So, let’s concentrate on the Getty and Bauer deals.

First, Getty-Shutterstock is about controlling more of an already declining image market, protecting its position through cutting costs (estimated annual savings are up to $200m after three years) and facing up to the threat that AI image generation brings. The combined entity will control nearly half of the global image market with a massive library of approximately one billion stock images, videos, GIFs and the like. Image prices are being driven down, photographers are (sadly) being paid less and the market has become commoditised.

On the face of it, this replicates the Kwik-Save store mentality of the 1980s, “pile it high and sell it cheap,” but generative AI tools, such as Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-E, are major threats to the traditional image market. Getty is not only trying to consolidate its position as the place to go by offering a broader and deeper content library, but wants to outpace competitors by developing its own AI-powered tools for image search, editing and generation. It hopes that its vast, merged combined repository will provide the biggest pool in the world to train its machine learning tools on.

In comparison, while Bauer-Clear Channel is also about consolidating across media platforms, it’s not simply about size, market share and defensiveness. Bauer has a suite of media assets in magazines, including Grazia and Heat, and radio with Absolute, Magic and Kiss to name just a few. By adding out-of-home it significantly extends its offering to advertisers and the opportunity to seamlessly sell media across a broader set of formats.

It’s interesting that in buying the North European elements of Clear Channel, Bauer has stuck to its local markets – those which it understands. It already operates in 7 of the 12 markets Clear Channel brings, so there’s a degree of risk mitigation, which brings me on to another point – trust.

Trust in news media is being eroded. There’s a constant onslaught of political influence across the various news platforms, some much more biased than others. Not to mention Elon Musk using his own platform, X, to have a pop at the UK’s Labour government as well as Nigel Farage (who must be particularly sore, given his prior constant praise for the guy). With polar-opposite opinions and spins being put on our ‘news’, and out-of-context comments and fake imagery being broadcast globally, people no longer know what to believe. The cancel culture still exists, but people are becoming a bit more suspicious of the information that’s being doled out and less knee-jerky before making a decision.

And if the public is trusting news media less and less, how does this translate into the trust people place in those brands that advertise on it?

One of our Green Square client alumni, Jack Horner (formerly of FRUKT, which Green Square sold to IPG, and now a founder of local media specialist, Nearfield), suggests local media news is considered far more authentic. While it tends to be “local news for local people,” the proximity of the matters being reported means it’s far more likely that fake news will be called out and local news platforms are hugely at risk should they lose trust. When something major happens locally, for example the dreadful fires in California, I can’t imagine residents would choose CNN or Fox over the Los Angeles Times to get a more detailed picture of what is happening.

In turn, this trust in local media can extend to advertisers. We all know brands must earn trust, but being seen in a place where authenticity already exists is a good start. It could be deemed smart to shift a more sizable element of advertising and events budgets to regional media outlets, allowing brands to connect and engage with local communities, in turn garnering more trust, loyalty and ultimately becoming part of their ecosystem. Out-of-home, or local radio, seem pretty smart places to be.

Another fear for brands is one where their adverts appear next to inappropriate or extreme content. In a world where media trust is diminishing, has this risk shifted to brands potentially being seen as inauthentic depending on their media placement? Again, out-of-home, or local radio seem pretty smart places to be…

As an aside, the LA Times is owned by billionaire entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who also owns the San Diego Union Tribune and other California news outlets. He acquired them with the specific intention of bringing more “fair and balanced” news, representing all views and, in late 2024, he controversially prevented the paper endorsing a single election candidate (in this case, Kamala Harris). He also fired the entire board in his ongoing quest to “restore balance.” Whichever way you look at it, given the size of the readership, this is local media at scale.

Coming back to the outlook for 2025, while in tricky times we tend to see consolidation, my wish-list for this year includes it being about restoring trust, particularly in media content. The purpose, ESG and diversity agendas have rightly had most prominence in recent times, but what use is purpose without trust?

It will be a shame if this year ends up being mostly about consolidation in an increasingly unstable world. M&A should be all about gaining complementary skills and services, which improve and extend client offerings, not just offering more of the same. That’s boring. Bigger isn’t better. Better is better, and the best acquisitions are those that augment people’s lives in some way. I’d like to think as we specifically look toward content that shapes so much of our day-to-day decision making, trust and authenticity will be higher on the agenda when looking at M&A.

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