Starting today, Media.Monks will transition its services into two fully synchronized Practices: Marketing services and Technology services, both powered by Monks.Flow, the industry leading, AI-powered, intelligent marketing and workflow platform. These offerings will be underpinned by a consulting group that will offer end-to-end services ranging from strategy to implementation. Effective immediately, Media.Monks also becomes simply Monks, marking a significant milestone in its evolution as a business and setting the stage for future growth and innovation beyond media.

“Many of today’s agencies are wrestling with the pace of change in a world profoundly transformed by technology. It's always been our ambition to disrupt the legacy model and today marks another important milestone in that journey,” says Sir Martin Sorrell, S4 Capital Founder and Executive Chairman. “With this shift in the way we deliver our services to market, we are better able to help clients transform the economics of their businesses and are well-positioned to develop and define the future of our industry.”

Monks' nine capabilities will remain in place, now focused in just two Marketing and Technology offerings, enabling clients to accelerate revenue growth, transformation and automation, while outpacing their competition:

• Marketing services will encompass a comprehensive suite of creative, content, media, social and data-driven marketing solutions, leveraging the Monks’ award-winning capabilities in storytelling, audience engagement and performance marketing to deliver outcomes that resonate with consumers and drive measurable results.

• Technology services will concentrate on the company’s technology, user experience, product engineering, data, digital transformation and consulting services. It will focus on robust digital infrastructures, next-gen digital products and consumer experiences and advanced data and analytics solutions that empower clients to navigate and thrive in the digital age.

A number of our senior Practice, capability and regional leaders wanted to comment on these important changes:

“This evolution reflects our unified cross-discipline teams, who bring the grit and the diversity of thought needed to help our clients accelerate growth and navigate the transformation of operating models,” says Scott Griset, EVP Consulting.

“Our aim is to simplify and accelerate the possibilities of technology and creativity for our clients and that starts with streamlining our offerings and identity,” says Brady Brim-DeForest, CEO, Technology services.

The new Monks brand emphasizes the cross-vertical and end-to-end capabilities offered by an integrated portfolio of services designed to maximize client revenue growth, innovation and reach.

“By dropping ‘media’ from our name, the new operating brand more accurately represents our integrated global team, unified expertise and diverse communities,” says Kate Richling, Chief Marketing Officer.

“Our refreshed brand embodies our team's synergy and versatile skills, committed to crafting impactful solutions for our clients’ challenges,” says Michelle McGrath, SVP Data.

“Our most innovative, impactful work has been powered by the intersection of our core teams and technology. Now, we have a brand that is reflective of that core ethos to carry us and our clients, into the next phase of evolution,” says Victoria Milo, SVP Media Solutions and Emerging Technology.

The Monks brand also emphasizes the dedication of our approximately 7,600 people to their craft.

“Placing a focus on the talent behind the work, the evolved Monks brand is designed for transparency and people—particularly in the age of AI—signalling the importance of having ambitious innovators in your corner for seamless implementation of emerging technologies,” says James Kinney, Chief People Officer.

“Our new name puts a spotlight on our talent, who excel in blending diverse specializations and cultures with a shared ambition to change the world,” says Deborah Heslip and Laura Davis, Co-Chief Client Officers, Marketing services.

“To be a Monk is to champion empathy, transparency, and diversity, driving us to create human-centric solutions for clients who are eager to authentically carve their place in culture,” says both Wesley ter Haar and Bruno Lambertini, Co-Chief Executive Officers, Marketing services.

Organizational and reporting structures to support the new services model will launch in 2025.

Stay up to date on the latest here or on LinkedIn.

POSSIBLE, organized by MMA Global, first launched last year with the goal of curating content and offering masterclasses, workshops, programming and more focused on the future of marketing, communication, culture and technology—all delivered by the biggest names in the business. Naturally, we were there too, where Monks from across our practices together shared a holistic view of practical ways that AI is transforming marketing right now. Touching on content, data, media and the technology that makes it all possible, here's what we covered on the stage.

Brands accelerate success with a test-and-learn approach to AI implementation.

First, our Co-CEO, Content Wesley ter Haar joined MMA’s AI Leadership Coalition (ALC), a group of marketers dedicated to responsibly and effectively integrating AI into marketing. The coalition seeks to equip the industry with tools and resources to harness AI across creative, media, and operations—and met on the stage to share how major brands are embracing the technology through a test-and-learn agenda, where ter Haar shared insight into our strategic approach to AI adoption.

We follow a three-phase process designed to create self-evolving systems that are not only efficient, but also effective. This includes an initial consulting phase where we define high value workflows quickly: ones that increase revenue, decrease costs, and most enhance productivity. Next, we integrate tools and technology into cutting edge software workflows to deliver growth, cost reduction and performance effectiveness. The process concludes with an execution phase—but that’s actually just the beginning, because as the brand rapidly reaches cost neutrality, investments can be made to fuel further innovation.

“AI has transitioned from toy to tool,” ter Haar said. “This evolution is outpacing even the most optimistic forecasts from industry experts. With these advancements, we are finally on the path to realizing the initial promise of digital advertising: enhancing precision and delivering personalization at scale.”

Augmented by AI tools, teams extract more value from their data.

SVP, Media Greg Kirby participated in a panel hosted by Tracer, the marketing reporting and analytics platform, which focused on data-driven trends that are defining digital marketing. Tracer’s technology enables brands to unify data sources to gain a holistic understanding of their audiences; likewise, Kirby shared how our focus on embracing emerging media helps brands better follow their audiences and engage with them more effectively, especially when augmented by AI-powered workflows that span the entire marketing function.

This can lead to surprising insights, three of which were covered in the talk. For example: Taylor Swift drove female viewership for the Super Bowl—but social media ad delivery to women dipped because they were so busy watching the game instead of scrolling. The finding opens up interesting conversation into ways that consumer data and content can reach new audiences in innovative ways.

On a related note, the panel moved on to how AI is driving creative analytics. Marketers increasingly rely on AI to optimize their creative, identifying variables like messaging, colors and objects or models depicted and their effects on performance. But this is also familiar territory for marketers in the data and digital media space.

Finally, the conversation turned to emerging platforms and formats, including new ones from Pinterest, which enable high-engagement, low-cost opportunities for brands. It can be tricky for a brand to understand how to best engage their audiences on emerging channels, but with Persona.Flow, an expansion of our Monks.Flow professional managed service, brands can translate their first-party data into interactive audience personas, then converse with them to quickly adapt to trends and fuel continuous learning and evolution in their marketing strategies as formats continue to evolve. This exemplifies the crucial role of a mature first-party data strategy, enabling brands to not only respond to but anticipate market dynamics data that continuously feeds into AI-driven workflows.

AI-powered platforms drive emotional relevance in creative delivery.

In addition to understanding audiences more effectively, AI-powered tools are also helping marketers make the most of their media investments. Our Head of Brand Investment Matthew Kramer participated in a panel, hosted by marketing platform business Wurl, whose tools power advertising, marketing and distribution across the world’s connected TV (CTV) ecosystem. The panel ruminated over the prevailing challenges that advertisers face in CTV today, including clutter, fragmentation and breaking through the noise.

One solution to these problems is building emotional resonance with audiences. This is being solved by a newly launched service from Wurl called BrandDiscovery, which Kramer and his team got to explore hands-on in work for a financial client. This led to impressive results, including a 33% lift in aided brand awareness and a 15% increase in purchase intent. “What’s even more promising, the campaign saw a 200% improvement in cost per engagement—as measured by EDO—when the ad creative’s emotions matched the content right before the ad break,” he told StreamTV Insider.

The use of new, AI-driven tools like BrandDiscovery to overcome significant challenges like capturing attention in the competitive CTV ecosystem, and nurturing close partnerships with the teams who build those tools, reinforce our approach to embracing new media channels and formats to better serve consumers. “From a partner perspective, we’re thinking about how we use these data tools and targeting driven by AI to make CTV—which historically hasn’t been tied to lower-funnel results—into a full-funnel driver,” Kramer said.

You can hear Kramer cover some of these possibilities in a recent episode of the Nex6 Project, hosted by John Ghiorso, where the two discuss how CTV is affecting creative and the role that AI is playing in that evolution.

Embrace the future, now.

From ter Haar's insights on AI's evolution from a novelty to a fundamental tool, to Kirby's exploration of data-driven audience engagement, and Kramer's discussion on emotional relevance in CTV advertising, POSSIBLE captured a detailed picture of how AI is transforming marketing—along with actionable strategies of how marketing teams can adapt and thrive within it. It's clear that as we continue to build and harness these tools, the potential to drive brand growth and engage with audiences in meaningful ways is not just possible—it's happening now.

First, Salesforce has announced its new product, Marketing Cloud Growth Edition, which is designed to put data at brands’ fingertips to help them grow. Second, Salesforce is extending no-cost access to Data Cloud to Marketing Cloud Engagement and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement customers with Sales or Service Enterprise Edition (EE) licenses or above, giving them access to tools they can use to fuel stronger business outcomes with Einstein 1. This includes increasing speed to market, generating more relevant content, increased conversions, and the ability to connect conversations across the entire customer relationship. Both announcements roll out to the Americas this February and the EMEA region in the second half of 2024.

Whether you’ll just be trying Marketing Cloud for the first time or are firmly established on the platform, the news has promising implications for everyone. Read on to learn what the announcements mean for your team.

Data Cloud helps brands of any size prepare and streamline generative AI capabilities.

This is an exciting time to be a marketer; generative AI has ushered in an era of marketing-led transformation and new workflows that help us do our jobs smarter and faster. According to Salesforce’s Generative AI Snapshot Survey, 71% of marketers say generative AI will eliminate busy work and allow them to be more strategic. But AI is only as good as your data; high-quality data is essential for fueling accurate models and insights in the Einstein 1 platform.

And that’s where Data Cloud comes in. No-cost access to Data Cloud opens the door for even more businesses to use the platform for the first time, helping them build a solid data foundation that will service and streamline their AI transformation journeys.

Data Cloud is quickly becoming the leading customer data platform thanks to its ability to connect across sales, services, marketing, commerce, loyalty, third-party advertising and legacy applications. Previously, Salesforce announced no-cost access for Sales Cloud and Service Cloud customers.

Marketing Cloud Growth Edition applies marketing automation to help brands grow.

The launch of Marketing Cloud Growth Edition will expand the platform’s access to the small business market for the first time. In fact, this new edition of Marketing Cloud is designed to help brands grow their business. From delivering campaigns and content faster with trusted AI to better personalizing customer relationships with data, Marketing Cloud Growth Edition applies marketing automation to help small businesses connect their teams and drive revenue on a single, intuitive platform.

Benefits of the platform include helping small teams do more with fewer resources. This means small teams can spend more time building strong data foundations—data that will be critical for successful generative AI—and leverage enterprise AI capabilities for the first time. Marketing Cloud Growth Edition removes some of the technological barriers to entry that smaller businesses face in implementing AI, helping them get up to speed with fewer headaches.

What if I’m already a Marketing Cloud user?

Marketing Cloud Growth Edition might be the cool, new kid on the block, but there’s no need to move from an existing Marketing Cloud to this one. Marketing Cloud Growth Edition indeed brings new functionality to the table, but we look forward to seeing further innovations in Marketing Cloud Engagement and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement that will bring each platform in parity with one another. This means all Marketing Cloud customers can expect more good news on the horizon.

Whether you’re an existing Marketing Cloud user or will just be getting started with Marketing Cloud Growth Edition, we’re happy to help you make the most of platform features. Having a seat on the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Partner Advisory Board and being part of the the product’s pilot program, I'm thrilled to see the platform become more accessible to even more businesses, granting them access to robust, enterprise-level data tools for the first time—especially at a time when that is so crucial to entering the new AI economy.

For those using Marketing Cloud in any of its forms, we offer guidance on how to connect your data strategy and implement features as they go live. For Data Cloud users, we can help you realize the role of data beyond the context of customer relationship management, like how to join it together with generative AI functions.

Unlock the power of AI with Salesforce.

Both of Salesforce’s recent announcements will be welcome news to marketers who are itching to ramp up their AI transformation journeys. While Marketing Cloud Growth Edition and no-cost access to Data Cloud are especially beneficial to smaller businesses, a strong data strategy is important for organizations of any size—and no matter your Marketing Cloud of choice, we can help you make the most of your customer data on the platform.

Got any questions about Marketing Cloud Growth Edition? Check out Salesforce’s announcement for more.