Lotame

Customers Still Buy From People: A Conversation with Alison Harding, VP of Data Solutions EMEA at Lotame

Publicis Reframes Identity with LiveRamp Acquisition

Quo Vadis published an analysis and hosted an interview with Mathieu Roche to unpack Publicis’s acquisition of LiveRamp and its implications for identity economics in advertising. The piece argues Publicis bought positional infrastructure and data-exchange capability rather than short-term profits, following prior buys such as Epsilon and Lotame. It frames identity as a means of exchange (a currency that enables trades of inventory, audience data and measurement) and revisits the 'Identity Trade-Off Frontier'—the historical tension between scale and ID precision—arguing recent infrastructure advances have expanded that frontier. The article introduces the 'Gravity Theory of Data Trade' to explain network effects and raises neutrality and lock-in questions now that LiveRamp sits inside a major holding company. The post also lists related Cannes events and calls out wider industry shifts from cookies toward infrastructure and collaboration.

Publicis buys LiveRamp for $2.2B to own AI data

Publicis Groupe announced on 2026-05-18 that it will acquire LiveRamp in an all-cash agreement, positioning the deal as a strategic move to own proprietary identity and first‑party data for agentic AI applications. The transaction is based on an acquisition price of $38.50 per share, a 29.8% premium to LiveRamp’s close on May 15. LiveRamp — a data collaboration platform offering identity resolution, privacy-safe data collaboration, clean rooms, cross-platform measurement and first‑party activation — will continue to be led by CEO Scott Howe, who will report to Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun. Publicis said LiveRamp will remain neutral and interoperable. The acquisition follows Publicis’s prior data‑focused buys (Epsilon, Lotame) and is framed as a step to operationalize proprietary data assets to train and run governed AI agents.