Why Liquid Death’s media chief is determined to break away from LiveRamp

That fear stems from what LiveRamp learned about Liquid Death’s customers. The company’s job was to recognize the same people as they moved between screens and sites, so someone who saw an ad on a smart TV could be found again on a phone or a retailer’s site.

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Over time that showed the brand which ads got people buying. Names and email addresses that get swept up in that tracking don’t concern Vatere since Publicis won’t see personal information. He’s far more concerned about the buying patterns. Publicis, after all, also works for brands Liquid Death competes with, like Benoit Vatere.

Vatere worries his patterns could end up in the data the holdco uses to train its AI tools and subsequently help make strategic calls for those rivals. Granted, the deal’s terms say that can’t happen. But Vatere expects them to change – terms and conditions get rewritten all the time, after all – not to mention the FTC’s watch over the deal lasts only five years. 

“Let’s be clear about why Publicis bought LiveRamp,” continued Vatere. “They did it because there is value right? And the value is not just the revenue.”

That’s an indictment of every holdco with designs on an identity graph as it is of Publicis specifically. Vatere won’t hand his data to any company that also advises his competitors, which rules out the likes of Havas, still a LiveRamp user, WPP or Omnicom, which is building its own alternative.

In fact, Omnicom’s Acxiom has already tried its luck. Vatere sent it packing on the same grounds. “I’m not mad at Publicis. I just don’t want any of the holdcos to own it.” 

That leaves independent providers, and Vatere isn’t naive about them either. Most are built with an acquisition and an exit in mind, so whichever one he picks will have to sign a contract that ends the relationship and deletes Liquid Death’s data the moment control changes hands. 

“There should be a clause [that] if there’s change of ownership, change of control, contract out, right? Data deleted, like the whole thing, “ added Vatere. 

He has a deadline of sorts. The LiveRamp contract runs out at the end of the year, and Liquid Death isn’t big enough to build its own graph. “I cannot do without it right now,” he said. 

Chances are he won’t have to. The industry has no shortage of would-be LiveRamp replacements and plenty of them have already found their way to Vatere’s DMs. Earlier this week, the marketer posted his stance on LinkedIn after seeing reports that the holdco wasn’t concerned about competitors leaving now the deal has closed. 

The replies read like a who’s who of the opportunists circling the fallout. One of them was LiveRamp’s CEO, said Vatere. He sent him a connection request, which was duly accepted. Nothing has come of it so far. Not much could. The only thing that would win him back is LiveRamp pulling out of the deal and that ship has sailed. 

Vatere is far from the only industry player to have taken this stance. LiveRamp rivals have been fielding calls and pitching for business since the deal was announced in the Spring. Both WPP and Omnicom have stopped working with the solution.

Advertisers have spent years investing heavily in cloud infrastructure, customer data platforms and first-party data infrastructure with the aim of retaining ownership of customer information as they activate media strategies. CMOs worried about maintaining that control may be at the front of the queue to speak to alWhether any of this has a material impact on the trajectory of the business under Publicis remains uncertain. The likely answer is that Publicis wants LiveRamp’s data and connections for its own AI ambitions, combining LiveRamp’s clean room and data connectivity tech with the identity capabilities of Epsilon and the tech services of Publicis Sapient.

Competitors and non-Publicis businesses are also a sliver of the business, accounting for roughly 5% of LiveRamp’s $800 million annual revenue. A few defections at the edges are a price the holdco can afford to pay. Whether marketers like Vatere peel away in big enough numbers to change that sum is an open question. 

“Advertising is an inherently zero-sum game. You need to beat your competitors to grow,” said Ruben Schreurs, chief executive officer at Ebiquity. “Taking a uniform commoditized approach to communications or media is not a good strategy.”

He argued, however, that working with LiveRamp alongside rivals won’t be the act that jeopardises a brand’s edge. “I do think it’s a little overplayed,” he added. “You can absolutely manage things in a way that if [your] agency also works for competing brands, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem. The same is true with LiveRamp.”

Whether any of this has a material impact on the trajectory of the business under Publicis remains uncertain. The likely answer is that Publicis wants LiveRamp’s data and connections for its own AI ambitions, combining LiveRamp’s clean room and data connectivity tech with the identity capabilities of Epsilon and the tech services of Publicis Sapient.

In any case, many of Vatere’s peers may find themselves boxed into to signing up with a Publicis-backed LiveRamp, or one of the rival holdco solutions, due to the market’s contraction in recent years.

“Clients absolutely care about conflict, how conflict is managed, but they have less and less optionality,” noted Schreurs. “There is now a big global three to choose from, so you’re going to work with a company that also works for competing brands. Then it becomes all about how you retain your competitive edge.”

Competitors and non-Publicis businesses are also a sliver of the business, accounting for roughly 5% of LiveRamp’s $800 million annual revenue. 

A few defections at the edges are a price the holdco can afford to pay. Whether marketers like Vatere peel away in big enough numbers to change that sum is an open question.