Publicis is building a vertical data stack and this acquisition of LiveRamp could send shockwaves across adland.
Publicis Groupe’s $2.2bn acquisition of LiveRamp is more than just another media giant buying out an adtech solution. The deal is a signal the tides are shifting in adland and the ripples will be felt across the entire ecosystem.
Publicis is one of the largest advertising agencies globally and on the face of it, this acquisition confirms that owning the data is key in modern advertising. But more importantly, this deal is about the control of infrastructure.
“The companies gaining leverage are the ones controlling the plumbing between data, identity, activation, measurement and decisioning,” writes David Sargant, product and innovation director at SBS, on LinkedIn.
In the backdrop, 2026 marks Publicis’ 100th year in business — a milestone that underlines the company’s ability to adapt through every shift in media. Yet the group recognises that new intelligence, AI and data-led capabilities will be critical to shaping its next century.
As such the Parisian holdco will likely look to combine LiveRamp’s identity solution and clean room capabilities with its existing data arm – Epsilon and Lotame. In doing so, it has essentially built itself a vertical data stack that shifts the agency media buying model to one that controls the underlying layer required to power agentic AI.
The end of a neutral plumber
This has significant ramifications. Firstly and foremost, this could spell the end of the neutral plumber status of the adtechs.
LiveRamp has often been described as the ‘Switzerland of data’ and “built much of its value through independence and neutrality,” Rob McLaughlin, founder and chief exec at AUDIENCES, tells me.
“Advertisers, publishers and agencies have spent years getting comfortable with it as a trusted activation layer and many will consider how this change impacts that comfort.”
Despite Publicis claiming LiveRamp will remain neutral, can brands and other agencies truly trust a platform owned by another advertising giant, which has its own commercial interests, client relationships and AI ambitions?
For rival network agencies like Omnicom and WPP, this poses a trust dilemma. They need to decide if they are comfortable routing their clients’ sensitive, first-party data through a substrate owned by a competitor..
“This matters because privacy and security are not a passing backlash, they are a permanent correction,” says McLaughlin.
“The responsibility for customer data will remain with the organisations that own it, even as holding companies push towards agentic planning, buying and execution. And businesses that respect the data sovereignty of brands and advertisers will win in the coming years.”
On the flip side, over the past few years, the advertising landscape has been consolidating – WPP bought InfoSum and LiveRamp acquired Habu in 2024. This means there are very few, if any, independent adtechs that offer data collaboration and identity solutions on the open web.
That could see rival networks scrambling to find alternative solutions with many experts believing they will turn to the likes of Snowflake Inc or Amazon Web Services (AWS) clean room to bypass agency-owned systems.
A gateway into iGaming
While the big holding companies are treating this acquisition as a major threat, for smaller players operating in high-value, data-intensive sectors such as retail, sports and igaming, there is a mixture of pressure on ability to compete and opportunities.
Retail media has been one of the fastest growing digital marketing channels – projected to grow 11.3% to $190.5bn in 2026, according to WPP’s This Year Next Year report.
Publicis already owns Mars United Commerce and CitrusAd, which are big players in this space; and now LiveRamp, another retail media heavyweight, will join the group. It’ll come as no surprise that this unified super entity will make it difficult for mid-tier retail media platforms and smaller agencies to compete.
For igaming operators, there’s another layer to consider. LiveRamp has been pivotal in introducing the opportunities retail media offers to casinos.
The landmark partnership between LiveRamp and Mohegan saw the launch of the industry’s first casino media network, which connected the operator’s physical and digital footprint. It resulted in over 200 million monthly impressions across slot machines, digital kiosks, hotel apps, and loyalty programmes.
LiveRamp proved you could expand retail media and translate data from traditional fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) stores into offline, real-world, brick-and-mortar ecosystems like casinos. It’s a perfect case study… Publicis just bought the commercial playbook and can now replicate it at scale across its global clients.
To put this into context. Publicis can couple Mohegan’s first-party data with Epsilon’s billions of consumer profile data and use it to track a user’s resort booking online and then serve them a personalised ad when they sit down at a specific slot machine.
Ripple effects
While Mohegan may have been the first, there’s no doubt other casino groups would have been looking to launch their own media networks. But now, with this deal on the table, it once again poses the dilemma: are operators comfortable sharing their highly-sensitive data with an advertising giant?
It’s a similar dilemma on the sports marketing front. Sportsbooks, leagues and clubs possess high-value data on fans. Specialist sports agencies rely on LiveRamp to onboard ticket holder and merchandise data and match this against streaming platforms and connected TV (CTV) inventories.
For these smaller agencies, it’s not just about the risk associated with sharing data with a network agency, it’s fear that fees could rise over time and updates to the technology will favour Publicis clients.
However, this leaves the door open for smaller adtechs specialising in sports signals or real-time fan engagement to position themselves as an alternative option.
The Publicis-LiverRamp deal is sending a clear signal about where the industry is heading: the future of advertising is about the “ownership of the systems connecting data, identity, activation and outcomes”, adds Sargant.
It’s a bold move from the media conglomerate, the question now is, can it ride the waves? If this acquisition is successful, Publicis will become a close-loop tech behemoth that can compete directly with the walled gardens of Google, Meta and Amazon.
