UK January 6

For the last six years, Jason Reid, who handles the annual investment warchest at Stagwell Group, the new-ish agency holding company, has been responsible for finding suitable candidates for purchase, then negotiating and closing the deals. In that time, observers say Reid has carved out an identity for Stagwell that’s distinct from legacy competitors like WPP — and newcomers like S4 Capital. This is the fourth story in a Digiday series that will look at the people and companies at the center of media’s defining storylines. Read more below.

• With between $50 million and $100 million to spend on acquisitions, Stagwell continues to hunt for businesses that round out its marketing services aspirations.
• The Rundown: NBCUniversal’s first-party data platform keeps pace. The broadcaster said it has 150 million deterministic individual IDs, and expects to have 200 million by year’s end.
• Eden Collective specializes in guiding DTC companies holistically through offline and online media in ways pure-play performance shops don’t do.
• The year in ad tech has begun as it ended, with a flurry of dealmaking and there’s reason to expect a further run of M&A activity lies ahead.
• Digiday caught up with founder and CEO Stephanie Olson to hear how We Are Rosie will continue to grow, how advertising is changing and how the talent war will continue in 2022.
• In this week’s Digiday+ Media Briefing, Digiday’s media team looks ahead to the topics and trends that are likely to be focal points for media companies’ operations this year.
• In 2021, the video game industry experienced the rise of alternative business models, including free-to-play titles with in-app purchases, play-to-earn games and games as a service.