Publicis Launches Digital Media Consultancy; Takes Stakes in Six Startups

I’m inherently skeptical of consultancies, so will stick to the facts here: French ad-agency holding giant Publicis Groupe is launching a consulting firm called Denuo, to advise companies on emerging digital technologies. What’s more interesting is that the new firm will take a stake in the startups it advises, what Stowe Boyd has dubbed as “advice advisory capital” (that is no money is invested, only thinking and intellectual capital in return for the stakes, as Rishad dubs it).

This is not technically a new concept…PR strategist Hal Bringman does PR for startups in return for equity, as I am sure others do too. (NYT wrote a story on it last year, here)

Among the startups it has a stake in include online video technology provider Brightcove; Lightningcast, a Washington firm that provides software for broadband advertising; Reactrix, a Redwood City, Calif., firm that uses technology to project images and games onto floors of heavily trafficked areas such as stores or movie theaters; and Shadow TV, an NYC-based streaming video service tech provider.

The firm will be led by Rishad Tobaccowala, the media-buying veteran who has become a new media impresario of sorts over the last few years. He most recently held the post of chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media.

Publicis is open to spending its own money investing in or even possibly acquiring a firm in this area.

Relatd: Interview with Rishad: He talks about the potential conflict of interest with these stakes in starups, along with advising big companies. “We have six companies in which we have some form of a stake. We have a dozen that we are in conversations with and we are monitoring about three dozen other start-ups. We believe that if we are going to help our clients get to the future it is important for us to work with companies who are inventing the future.”

MediaDailyNews: It is also backing a new consumer service called Groundhog.tv, a consumer site by Shadow TV, the company I mentioned above. The site so far has relatively little content, but some NBC stations have agreed to provide their entire broadcast news streams via the service.

Some more details on the people hired for Denuo, here in this release.

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