• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, September 30, 2014

As marketer interest in real-time marketing continues to accelerate, agency holding companies are getting more acquisitive in the global social media sector to help strengthen their real-time marketing practices.

The latest example:  Publicis Groupe has purchased Italy’s social media agency  Ambito5, which has worked with Saatchi & Saatchi closely in the past and will now be integrated with the Publicis agency.

Based in Milan, Ambito5 clients include Costa Cruises, Barilla, L’Oreal and Swatch. Shared clients included Toyota, Lexus, Procter & Gamble, among others. The acquisition of Ambito5 is the latest in a string of digital shops that have recently been added to the Saatchi & Saatchi network including Zweimaleins in Germany, Synergize in South Africa, Interactive Solutions in Poland and Outside Line in the UK.

Publicis is the third major holding company to acquire a social media shop in the last two weeks. Last week both WPP and Interpublic bought agencies in other markets.

VML, part of WPP’s Y&R network, struck a deal to acquire Shanghai-based social media shop Teein. And IPG Mediabrands, the media investment arm of Interpublic Group agreed to acquire Turkish social media agency Promoqube, based in Istanbul.

IPG noted at the time that Promoqube runs its own proprietary social media listening and monitoring technology, “SenseKit” to manage social media communities, as well as Twitter and Facebook campaign tools such as “WinnerTweet” and “WinnerClick.”  Those tools will be licensed across other IPG Mediabrands agencies in Turkey, including UM and BPN.