Account Supervisor

Brave Bison reports profit rise as System1 takeover hangs in balance. Wed, 26th Aug 2026 11:30 (Alliance News) - Brave Bison Group PLC on Wednesday reported higher first half profit and revenue, following continued growth across its platform-based businesses and resilient trading in its Sport & Entertainment division. The London-based advertising and communications agency said that for the half year ended June 30, pretax profit rose to GBP2.1 million from GBP100,000 a year earlier. Revenue more than doubled to GBP36.3 million from GBP17.8 million. Net revenue nearly doubled to GBP23.9 million from GBP12.0 million, while adjusted pretax profit more than doubled to GBP4.1 million from GBP1.9 million. Brave Bison said both were ahead of its July trading update. Brave Bison said net revenue growth was driven by acquisitions, strong trading in its Sport & Entertainment division and double-digit organic growth at MiniMBA. In May, Brave Bison announced a record multi-year agreement between MiniMBA and Omnicom. The company said it had substantially improved the marketing, sales and product development capabilities of the marketing training business since acquiring it in August 2025. Brave Bison also highlighted its 28% shareholding in System1 Group PLC, acquired in March, as supporting the strategic and financial rationale for its proposed combination with the company. Brave Bison did not declare an interim dividend. Looking forward, the company said trading remains in line with expectations and is weighted towards the second half of the year. Executive Chair Oliver Green said: "This has been another period of momentum for Brave Bison, with net revenue nearly doubling and Adjusted PBT up 120%, both ahead of its July trading update. Its platform-based solutions, including MiniMBA, continued to deliver strong organic growth, alongside a resilient performance from its Sport & Entertainment division. "The record multi-year agreement between MiniMBA and Omnicom announced in May 2026 underlines the strength of our offering to the world's largest advertisers, and as separately announced we have progressed to a firm offer by the company for System1 Group PLC." "We believe is in the best interests of all Brave Bison and System1 shareholders," Green added. Shares in Brave Bison were up 3.8% at 83.00 pence on Wednesday morning in London. By Niall Holden, Alliance News reporter Shares in this article. Brave Bison 84.50 5.63% System1 Group 335.00 0.00%

Omnicom shifts Omni engineering teams to Endava amid AI platform push. Omnicom has transferred significant portions of the product and engineering teams supporting its AI-powered Omni platform to technology contractor Endava, according to ADWEEK. The changes came just months after Omnicom highlighted a revamped version of Omni at CES in January, positioning the platform as a central part of its offering to clients. At least 468 employees in the U.S., U.K., India and Malaysia were affected by the transfers in June and July, according to documents obtained by ADWEEK. The company also laid off about 50 U.S. employees from its Omni Platforms Product & Engineering Division on June 9. Additional product and engineering cuts were made in Australia, the U.K. and Malaysia, sources told ADWEEK. An Omnicom spokesperson told ADWEEK that the company entered into a multiyear partnership with Endava designed to increase engineering capacity and accelerate delivery. Under the arrangement, Omnicom retains ownership of the Omni product, as well as its AI innovation, data science, client relationships and intellectual property, the spokesperson said. Some affected employees questioned the strategy of separating a key technology platform from portions of the engineering team responsible for developing and supporting it. One transferred employee told ADWEEK the move raises questions about outsourcing engineering work for a product Omnicom is actively marketing to clients. - Based on reporting by ADWEEK Capitol Communicator. Capitol Communicator is a unique online and offline resource for Mid-Atlantic advertising, marketing, public relations, digital and media communications professionals. The e-magazine, e-newsletters and events bring together communications professionals, fostering community and providing important information; news; trends; education; and opportunities for networking, career enhancement, business exchange and showcasing great work. Stay current by subscribing to our newsletters by clicking on the subscribe link in the footer of this website and by checking in regularly with Capitol Communicator. 0 comments. Sponsors. [metaslider id="29383"] Capitol Communicator career center search results (jobs in multiple locations). Media kit. Recent comments.

The looming AI cost shift: why agency margin squeezes will redefine publisher branded video deals. * home * The looming AI cost shift: why agency margin squeezes will redefine publisher branded video deals. Advertising holding companies are racing to integrate generative artificial intelligence into their media planning, buying, and creative workflows. But behind the promises of automation and efficiency lies a substantial, unquantified financial liability: the massive infrastructure costs of running these advanced computing systems. As agencies begin to absorb these technical overheads, the financial pressure is highly likely to trickle down to their media partners. For digital publishers, this shift threatens to squeeze margins on their most lucrative offerings - branded content and co-produced video campaigns. The warning signs of this impending cost shift emerged directly from the top of the agency ecosystem. Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Omnicom CEO John Wren raised alarms about the underlying economics of the technology. Wren pointed out that while software companies and enterprise partners are eager to sell AI tools, the broader marketplace has not yet reckoned with the actual operational costs of executing AI at scale. To preserve their own profitability, agency holding companies are structured to pass backend operational costs along the supply chain. When agencies face margin pressure, their traditional lever is to squeeze vendor fees, production markups, and media distribution margins. Publisher-led branded video studios, which rely heavily on agency-negotiated budgets, represent a prime target for these cost-recovery efforts. In a typical branded content deal, a publisher sells a bundled package that combines creative concepting, physical production, talent sourcing, and guaranteed media distribution across its digital properties. These deals carry much higher margins than programmatic display advertising, helping to fund independent newsrooms and specialized editorial operations. However, agencies are increasingly deploying their own proprietary AI platforms to perform work that was historically outsourced to publishers or production houses. For example, Publicis Groupe's massive €300 million investment in its CoreAI platform and WPP's collaboration with Nvidia to build AI-driven content engines demonstrate how agencies are consolidating production capabilities. These platforms utilize AI for rapid storyboarding, copy variations, and localized video iteration. By moving these creative steps in-house - and justifying the massive capital expenditure to their shareholders - agencies are positioned to demand lower creative fees from publishers. The publisher is then left with the lower-margin components of the deal: physical execution and distribution. Furthermore, agencies are likely to demand deeper discounts on the distribution portion of branded video campaigns to offset their internal technology overhead. If an agency must absorb high computing costs to license proprietary large language models and clean room data architectures, that capital must be clawed back. The easiest path to doing so is insisting on lower effective CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) and reduced production fees from publisher partners. This pressure is compounded by the fact that global ad spend growth remains modest, meaning agencies must find internal efficiencies or vendor-side discounts to maintain their historically stable operating margins, which typically hover around 11% to 15% for major holding groups. This shift presents a serious challenge to publisher infrastructure and planning timelines. Building a branded video studio requires significant upfront investment in physical equipment, specialized production staff, and distribution tech stacks. Unlike programmatic ad setups, these creative operations cannot easily pivot when budgets contract. A publisher that has scaled its internal studio based on historical production margins may suddenly find those margins unsustainable if agencies insist on clawing back fees to cover their AI infrastructure investments. To insulate themselves from this looming margin squeeze, sophisticated media operators must re-evaluate how they package and price their branded content. Rather than offering easily commoditized creative services that agencies can replicate with internal AI tools, publishers need to double down on what cannot be automated: direct audience access, first-party data targeting, and proprietary talent networks. Publishers should also demand greater transparency regarding how agencies evaluate the efficiency of AI-assisted campaigns. If an agency insists on reducing a publisher's production fee because the agency utilized AI for the initial campaign strategy, the publisher must ensure that the performance metrics and distribution guarantees of the campaign are adjusted accordingly. Ultimately, the infrastructure costs of the AI transition will not be borne solely by the technology providers or the agencies themselves. As holding companies look to balance their books in the face of rising cloud computing and software licensing fees, the pressure will inevitably move downward. Publishers who rely on high-margin branded video deals must prepare now for a more adversarial negotiating environment, ensuring their operational costs are lean enough to withstand the agency squeeze. Jordan alvarez. Multimedia journalist who spent years covering creator economy platforms and understands that modern publishers are diversifying far beyond display ads. Approaches revenue innovation with healthy skepticism - interested in what actually scales, not what generates conference buzz. His reporting on commerce integrations, affiliate strategies, and video monetization always includes the infrastructure question: what does implementation actually require, and what's the realistic timeline to revenue?