Continuing to bolster its interactive capabilities, advertising holding company WPP has struck a deal with LiveWorld to introduce social network functionality into selected WPP ad campaigns. The deal
comes shortly after WPP's recent acquisitions of word-of-mouth marketing firm
M80 and Web design
and analytics firm
Zaaz.
LiveWorld will lend its online community expertise
to Web campaigns for WPP clients, focusing on key areas including online infrastructure, interface design, and content policing. LiveWorld already provided these services for Dove's "Campaign For Real
Beauty" at the behest of WPP property Ogilvy Interactive. Ownership of the new partnership, called WPP-LiveWorld, will be divided equally between the two stakeholders.
With WPP slated to buy
just $2 million worth of LiveWorld stock, the small amount of actual corporate ownership being transferred resembles IPG's recent deal with online college social network Facebook. IPG bought just one-half of one percent of Facebook stock in exchange for access to
consumer data and promises of substantial ad spend on the site.
However, the deals differ in their strategic goals: while IPG hopes to leverage the Facebook site as an ad platform, WPP is
asking LiveWorld to build social networking into specific ad campaigns.
The WPP deal seems to make sense in the context of the company's other recent purchases, said Dave Neupert, CEO of
word-of-mouth firm M80. "LiveWorld provides tools to do branding solutions, and I could see us being very compatible. We use very similar technical subcontractors all the time, and their technology
would fit nicely into our arena."