London, United Kingdom — Reddit, the social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website, has entered into a long-term consultative partnership with global marketing communications company, WPP. The partnership, a first of its kind for Reddit, and led by its global agency development team, will strengthen Reddit’s on and off-platform commerce offering by closely aligning with WPP’s industry-leading commerce roadmap.
The partnership will tap into the commerce and technology expertise across WPP and its media agencies within GroupM through quarterly advisory meetings. Teams will consult on Reddit’s commerce strategy, ensuring it incorporates the latest insights and intelligence from across the WPP network. WPP will receive a first look at Reddit’s commerce solutions with early access to alpha and beta tests so both companies can collaborate on joint products to take to shared clients. The joint collaboration will also include a joint research piece, to test the effectiveness of future commerce products on Reddit, along with a training program through Reddit Ads Formula, which soft-launched last year.
Reddit builds on its existing partnership with WPP media arm, GroupM, which was one of the very first to meet with Reddit’s ads product team when it was first introduced, this partnership will widen the aperture of Reddit’s relationship with WPP and help inform Reddit’s long term commerce strategy, firmly cementing its role in the wider commerce mix.
Harold Klaje, global EVP and president of advertising for Reddit, commented, “Online communities are not new but they have emerged throughout the pandemic as an integral part of the commerce mix thanks to the highly influential role they play in the consumer path to purchase. I am excited to further strengthen our relationship with WPP and its suite of clients as we continue to collaborate and build together, tapping into the holding company’s impressive expertise and working towards mutually beneficial outcomes for our advertising partners.”
Meanwhile, Amanda Grant, vice president, managing partner, and global head of social for GroupM, said that being a part of the Reddit product council in the past year has given them a seat at the table in terms of early product design, leading to better-aligned product development and advertiser interest.
“The partnership brings key stakeholders in early enough to steer concepts rather than confirm a formed hypothesis. GroupM and WPP are approaching commerce evolution much more methodically with our partners, as our performance expertise helps to connect user behaviours, to platform utility, and finally advertiser need. We are looking forward to richer contributions and partnership with Reddit,” Grant said.
Many WPP client brands are already working with Reddit to drive commerce solutions through Reddit’s highly engaged user base and 100,000+ communities. WPP was also an instrumental part of Reddit’s Product Council, which launched last year as a first-look and feedback session for key partners regarding Reddit’s evolving ads product roadmap. This new partnership will see Reddit and WPP continue to partner on client campaigns with a particular focus on lower-funnel education, strategy, and tactics to drive the strongest purchase outcomes.
The partnership comes as Reddit continues to grow its Global Agency Development team, which has recently appointed London-based Susanne Schmid who joins from Facebook where she was regional agency lead and will serve as Reddit’s global agency lead for WPP. Additionally, former VP, global head of partnerships at Verizon Media, John Baylon has also joined the team as the regional agency lead for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (EMEA), and will be responsible for servicing all holding companies across EMEA in a newly-developed role.
