Mars United Commerce

Canaccord Genuity Advises Mars United Commerce on its Sale to Publicis to Create the Industry-Leading Connected Commerce Solution

One of the largest commerce and marketing services transactions of the year

Mars is the largest independent commerce marketing company in the world. Leveraging its proprietary suite of commerce solutions, Mars drives growth through shoppers for more than 100 of the world’s top brands through its retail consultancy, commerce media expertise, and proprietary shopper intelligence

The combined forces of Mars and Publicis Groupe will allow clients to influence the complete commerce journey for billions of global shoppers, through an offering that begins with the industry’s deepest and richest database of consumer and shopper behavior and ends at the digital and physical shelves of the world’s leading online and offline retailers

Canaccord Genuity has advised Mars United Commerce, the world’s largest independent commerce marketing company, on its sale to Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40]. With more than 1,000 employees based in 14 hubs worldwide, the company helps marketers make their products consumers’ top choice in online and offline shopper ecosystems. Mars was previously a portfolio company of private equity firm Mountaingate Capital.

Founded 50 years ago, Mars United Commerce is renowned for its history of innovation, deep understanding of shoppers, proprietary commerce insights platform, and its extensive retailer relationships. Leveraging its proprietary suite of commerce solutions, Mars drives growth with shoppers for more than 100 of the world’s top brands through its retail consultancy, commerce media expertise, and proprietary shopper intelligence platform. All of the company’s capabilities are harnessed in pursuit of its vision: to be the world’s preeminent commerce marketing company.

Under the leadership of its CEO Rob Rivenburgh, Mars’ proprietary technology and solutions will further scale and supercharge Publicis’ existing commerce capabilities. While success in commerce by changing shopper behavior to drive business results is increasingly a core element of marketers’ winning strategies, activating in commerce has become increasingly complex, as brands must navigate a fragmented array of channels, media, technologies, and data. The combination of Mars and Publicis Groupe solves for this complexity by creating the world’s leading connected commerce solution, allowing clients to plan and activate through the full marketing funnel and increase sales at the point of purchase. Concretely, it means that Publicis Groupe’s clients can now create and implement end-to-end commerce solutions that optimize:

• Strategy and Insights: Fusing the power of Mars United’s proprietary data on shoppers and shopping behavior with Epsilon’s first-person identity data will give clients 360-degree insight into purchase journeys and new opportunities to motivate shopper behavior change.
  
  
• Media and Activation: Combining Mars United’s comprehensive understanding of retail organizations – including media, marketing, merchandising, and operations – with the scale of Publicis Media will help clients win the last mile of purchase in physical and digital locations with more efficient and effective campaigns.
  
  
• Performance and Measurement: Merging Mars United’s data set on commerce media performance with insights into ecommerce sales and operations from Publicis’ digital shelf platform Profitero (Canaccord Genuity advised Profitero) will give clients a complete view of their commerce marketing performance – online and offline – and an unmatched ability to drive brand growth.

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40] is a global leader in communication. The Groupe is positioned at every step of the value chain, from consulting to execution, combining marketing transformation and digital business transformation. Publicis Groupe is a privileged partner in its clients’ transformation to enhance personalization at scale. The Groupe relies on 10 expertise concentrated within four main activities: Communication, Media, Data, and Technology. Through a unified and fluid organization, its clients have a facilitated access to all its expertise in every market. Present in more than 100 countries, Publicis Groupe employs around 103,000 professionals.