Cannes 2015: WPP, DailyMail and Snapchat co-launch ‘Truffle Pig’

Follow Campaign Asia-Pacific's Cannes coverage at campaignasia.com/cannes2015 and coverage by the entire Campaign global team at cannes.campaignlive.co.uk.

This new company* is meant to offer brands "unprecedented reach and opportunity" through content planning, development and creation, as well as amplification across digital media platforms.

One may struggle to figure out why the industry needs another entity to do content marketing. Alexander Jutkowitz, managing partner of Group SJR, who has been appointed Truffle Pig’s CEO, explained what is special about Truffle Pig is that it combines analytics, publishing and a channel solution all in one place.

"We're not the only one doing content marketing but we want to be the first to contain all of this at the outset, down to details like the actual storytelling, the logo, the long-form vertical video strategy," he said. "It is a bit like the reinvention of television."

In Asia, this JV will play especially well in markets where mobile penetration has leapfrogged PCs, explained Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of WPP, with opportunities in mobile content and mobile search.

While this new launch bears some similarity to WPP's content offering GroupM Entertainment that is already present in China and India, said Sorrell in an interview with Campaign Asia-Pacific. "At some point in time, we do cannibalise what we already have."

The Mail Group, he said at the Truffle Pig launch, is an example of a company lucid in traditional media that has turned digital to survive as one of the fittest in publishing. "I believe in eating your own children. Truffle Pig is the next-generation adaptation of content marketing that will turn into something special," Sorrell said.

Jon Steinberg, CEO of Daily Mail North America, who will join the board of Truffle Pig, said: “A truffle pig finds the rare and tasty. With the need for story-driven marketing on our sites in a world where there is pressure on the topline with yet very little pricing power, we are looking for return on investment in more effective way." 

* Editor's note: Not to be confused with another Truffle Pig, a trip-planning company.