Sam's Club To Acquire Triad; Chase CMO Kristin Lemkau Is Promoted

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Welcome To The Club

Sam’s Club has agreed to acquire advertising technology and some executives from Triad, its retail ad tech partner and sales rep, Ad Age reported. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Along with the technology, Sam’s Club will pick up much of the team that has worked on its account. Triad, a WPP agency, recently lost the Walmart account, but has other blue chip retail clients, including Staples, Kohl’s, Wayfair, The Home Depot and CVS. Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, is following in its parent company’s footsteps by leaning on Triad to establish its in-house media operation. But unlike Walmart, it’s just subsuming the Triad tech and execs that it wants. More.

Market Makers

One of the world’s most visible CMOs, JPMorgan Chase’s Kristin Lemkau, has been tapped for a new role leading the company’s newly reorganized wealth management business. “Still think marketers can’t get president or CEO roles?” tweeted Salesforce strategy chief Jon Suarez-Davis after the announcement. The Wall Street Journal notes, “JPMorgan is facing an industry where big rivals and hot startups are fighting to appeal to millennials and first-time investors.” With that mandate in mind, putting a marketer in charge of the banking group makes more sense than a predictable choice from finance or sales. More.

Full Circle

Verizon Media is laying off 150 employees this week, or 1.4% of its workforce across multiple divisions, CNN Business reports. The cuts follow a larger layoff of 800 people, or 7% of staff, earlier this year after the unit failed to meet revenue goals. The layoffs are another black mark on Verizon Media Group (née Oath), which launched in 2017 after the telco purchased AOL and Yahoo to create a media and ad tech powerhouse. But Oath failed to meet those expectations, and Verizon wrote down the unit by $4.6 billion and rebranded it to Verizon Media Group. Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan plans to focus the company on advertising, subscriptions and ecommerce moving forward. More.

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