Estée Lauder Companies

Accenture Buys Whalar to Own Creator Marketing Moment

Accenture acquired the client-facing agency Whalar (the agency arm, not Whalar Group), signaling consultancies’ growing push into creator marketing by owning the budget-holder relationship and the broader technology and operational stack. The piece argues creator marketing has become an enterprise-scale challenge—requiring CRM, commerce, paid media, content management and data infrastructure—and likens the shift to programmatic’s rise. Veteran marketer Jamie Gutfreund created Apples to Apples, a public mapping of 70+ creator-tech companies across 100 criteria to help marketers compare discovery, measurement, commerce and data ownership capabilities. Case examples include Maeve, which used Agentio (AI-driven discovery/persona matching) to scale YouTube creator activity and saw durable returns. The briefing also includes OpenX CMO Amanda Forrester’s view that the SSP label is likely to disappear as AI and direct publisher relationships reshape the stack. US creator ad spend is cited at $43.9 billion this year (Interactive Bureau of Advertising).

Athleisure Brands Expand Into Performance Sports Gear

Athleisure brands are broadening beyond traditional gym and yoga apparel into performance categories like tennis, hiking, skiing, equestrian riding and more. FP Movement has dedicated collections for activities including tennis and hiking — with tennis sales growing ~20% year-over-year and hiking up 45% — while Outdoor Voices has increased its hiking assortment and launched equestrian gear, planning a second equestrian capsule in June. Vuori entered the skiing/snowboarding category in 2025. Brands cite consumer interest in outdoor and recreational sports, community feedback from clinics and clubs, and product collaborations with athletes as drivers for category expansion. The move reflects a strategy to capture more of customers’ broader active lifestyles and drive growth through activity-specific product lines.

SAP Buys Prior Labs; Weekly Business Highlights

Manager Magazin's Friday roundup reports SAP announced in early May it will acquire Freiburg-based AI start-up Prior Labs, founded 17 months earlier; the sale could make its founders — Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann and Sauraj Gambhir — among Germany's 500 richest. The newsletter also covers Samsung averting a strike and planning large bonuses for semiconductor staff, the collapse of merger talks between Estée Lauder and Puig, SpaceX filing an IPO prospectus under ticker SPCX, Citroën reviving the 2CV as an electric model under Stellantis, and Volkswagen facing increased costs related to Europcar after financial investors (including Attestor) exercise a put option. The edition includes investment commentary on defensive quality stocks (Givaudan) and policy and energy podcast recommendations.