This week’s round-up of the latest mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and account moves includes Tracer, Comcast, Publicis Sport and Entertainment, the Premier League, Omnicom, ComeOn Group, and more.
Deal Desk rounds-up the latest moves across the global affiliate and digital marketing industry and why it matters.
This week, Publicis Sport and Entertainment entered a broadcasting partnership with the Premier League; Tracer joined forces with Comcast’s Universal Ads; Perion acquired PRN; and Omnicom Media officially launched Hearts United.
Publicis’s broadcasting venture with the Premier League
Publicis Sport and Entertainment has officially entered a broadcast audience research partnership with the Premier League.
The Media Research team will look to build comprehensive audience insights for the league, providing measurements and analysis to one of the biggest sporting institutions in the world.
Publicis joins data giants Oracle, Stats perform, Microsoft, and Opta in providing insights and measurements for the league, with live-match insights, data-backed fan experiences, and win probabilities all collected through third-parties.
Leaders take
Publicis will be a fantastic addition to the Premier League’s metrics and measurement side, with audience insights helping to keep one of the most active sporting audiences in the world engaged with content and providing real insights into the successes and challenges of the competition.
This is not Publicis’ first sport broadcasting partnership, with the firm previously working with Sky Sports to launch a campaign to promote Formula 1 content.
Omnicom Media launches Hearts United
Omnicom Media has launched Hearts United. The new agency will bring together Hearts & Science and the former IPG agency, Mediahub.
The new agency will operate across 40 markets, and has already recorded $9.1bn in media billings in 2025, COMvergence reported.
Ross Jenkins, who will be leading Hearts United across EMEA having formerly been EMEA and APAC chief executive at Mediahub, commented: “With Hearts United we’re building the kind of agency we believe clients increasingly need to connect with people in motion across an AI-mediated world – one that discovers what others overlook, that finds the truths hidden in behaviour, and that dares to find an original way in, with media as the creative platform.”
Leaders take
Looking at the Hearts United client list, it looks to be primarily MediaHub clients, which makes sense given the acquisition.
The leadership structure is largely unfinished, with a number of roles still open – although Nicole Estebanell is set to lead the US alongside Jenkins for EMEA. Who they bring in to fill the gaps for the open positions will be an interesting decision.
Perion acquires PRN
One of the US’s most popular in-store retail media operators, Premium Retail Networks (PRN), has been acquired by Israeli adtech firm, Perion.
This expands Perion’s omnichannel ad platform to introduce physical retail environments while simultaneously unwinding the digital signage and media empire of Chris Riegel.
The acquisition was an all cash transaction, valued at up to $12mn. It is the latest in a number of acquisitions for Perion, including Pub Ocean, Content IQ, and Hivestack.
Leaders take
This deal will look to strengthen Perion’s growing position in the retail and digital out-of-home industries. Perion is looking to address a key gap in its omnichannel offering.
As much as 80% of US retail transactions still occur in physical retail environments, as Perion adds retail to its existing connected TV, social media, and commerce advertising offerings.
Other notable deals
Tracer has partnered with Comcast’s Universal Ads to create a unified foundation to support product launches, scalable self-serve growth, and real-time decisioning. Media companies are increasingly looking to automate and self-serve advertising at scale – and this partnership will bring Comcast’s Universal Ad offering one step closer.
ComeOn Group has announced a new strategic partnership with Xtremepush to integrate customer engagement platforms across a multi-brand portfolio. The deal will establish customer data with CRM all in one place.
Puck enters the advanced stages in talks to sell a significant stake to private equity group RedBird Capital, which is looking to buy an unknown stake in the digital media platform. RedBird Capital was one of the bidders hoping to purchase the Telegraph, but lost out to Axel Springer.
