Twitter inks deal with ad giant WPP

Twitter has just signed a deal with global advertising giant WPP, which will apparently see the two collaborating more closely in future.

The deal is the second that the social network has inked with a major advertising outfit in recent months, after partnering up with Starcom in a deal said to be worth “hundreds of millions” of dollars back in April.

As AllThingsD notes, WPP’s press release doesn’t put a figure on the deal, but it does sound pretty similar to the one struck with Starcom.

Essentially, Twitter will make it easy for WPP to spend a lot of money on the platform and WPP is committed to spending that very large amount of money.

The British-based WPP is the world’s largest advertising company by revenue and employs around 158 000 people in 2 500 offices across 108 countries. It is a hungry company that appears to be on a permanent buying spree.

WPP owns a number of the biggest names in advertising, public relations and market research networks, including Grey, Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy Group, TNS and Young & Rubicam.

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, said: “Twitter’s relevance continues to grow — not only as a social platform, but also as a window into consumer attitudes and behaviour in real time. We are delighted to announce this very wide-ranging strategic partnership and to ensure that Twitter data is a key ingredient in many of our disciplines. We look forward to leveraging the platform in a variety of ways for our clients around the world.”

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo meanwhile said that “As Twitter has grown, marketers are leveraging the platform for brand insights, relevant real-time messaging, and customer research. This partnership will benefit clients by pairing Twitter with WPP’s world-class analytics, targeting, and creative capabilities.”

These kind of partnerships have been formed between advertising conglomerates and tech companies, most notably Google, before. They’re also a very good thing for a company to have in its armory when it’s looking to go public, but if you ask Costolo when the social network will do that he’ll most likely tell you that he barely even thinks about it.