Welcome in, today is Thursday, July sixteenth, and we begin with new ANA research on why marketers are moving work in-house. Adweek reports on new research from the ANA showing that the primary benefit marketers claim from an in-house agency is shifting. According to the research, the stated rationale is moving away from cost savings and toward strategic control. That is a change in the terms of the argument, and it reads straight through to how external shops position themselves. The case is no longer against an internal option that is simply cheaper. It is against one the client is building on purpose. Per Adweek, in-housing is now being described as a strategic play rather than a cost-cutting move. Also today, the deal count. Tech Times reports, citing data from the advisory firm Quartermast, that acquirers in the creator economy closed seventy mergers and acquisitions in the first half of two thousand twenty-six. Per Quartermast, that is the strongest first half on record, up twenty-three percent year on year, and the firm projects the full year will clear one hundred deals, against eighty-seven in all of last year. The detail underneath the total is the part that travels. For the first time since the firm began tracking, media properties took a larger share of acquisitions than software tools: twenty-seven point one percent of transactions, against software's twenty-four point three. Quartermast founder James Creech is quoted saying capital is flowing toward businesses with defensible moats, healthy margins and meaningful scale, and that buyers are underwriting the sector on fundamentals, not narrative. Per the report, media assets traded at two to ten times EBITDA in the half, while software was priced on recurring revenue multiples of two to twelve times. For anyone valuing or selling a creator business, that is the new reference point. The named deals span the field. eBay took Depop from Etsy for one point two billion dollars. Netflix acquired the AI filmmaking startup InterPositive for up to six hundred million. And Accenture Song bought the creator agency Whalar in a deal the report estimates at five hundred million or more. Industry reaction leans skeptical of the growth framing. Some in the trade read the pace as consolidation rather than expansion, pointing to a sharp contraction in creator-economy venture funding and arguing incumbents are buying finished audiences rather than waiting to compete with them. Separately, a hard number on holding-company pay. Start with the deal behind it. Everything PR reports that Omnicom closed its thirteen point two five billion dollar all-stock acquisition of Interpublic in November. On the outlet's account, that leaves a group with roughly twenty-five billion dollars in pro-forma annual revenue. Against that closing sits a one-time option grant to chief executive John Wren. Everything PR, citing Omnicom's twenty twenty-six proxy statement filed with the SEC, reports the grant carries a fair value on the grant date of sixty-nine point two eight million dollars across four million shares, and is tied to the merger. Per the filing, it is the bulk of Wren's total twenty twenty-five compensation of sixty-nine point eight seven million dollars. His base salary through twenty twenty-eight is set at one dollar. The outlet reports notional upside of up to three hundred and ten million dollars, should the shares appreciate above the grant price of seventy-seven dollars sixty. For scale, Everything PR puts the twenty twenty-five chief executive pay ratio at twelve hundred to one, against median employee compensation of about fifty-seven thousand dollars. The outlet notes the package is more than triple Wren's twenty twenty-four pay of twenty-one point six nine million. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Bizcommunity reports an estimated three hundred WPP employees will be let go as the company works toward the five hundred million pound annual savings target under chief executive Cindy Rose's Elevate28 plan. That follows our earlier report on the unconfirmed mid-to-high-hundreds figure; the three hundred is Bizcommunity's estimate, and WPP has not confirmed a number. WPP has hired Rema Vasan as global president of social and creator for Open X, its integrated team serving The Coca-Cola Company, per afaqs and Storyboard18. She was previously head of North America business marketing at TikTok. Omnicom Media has named Andrew Cambridge chief executive of Initiative, per Mumbrella and AdNews, filling the seat vacated by Jo McAlister, who left for News Corp in May. Cambridge returns to the agency after roles at Omnicom Media Digital and TikTok. And finally, Dentsu has appointed Ajay Gupte, formerly of WPP Media, as chief operating officer for South Asia, per Storyboard18 and Indian Television, as the group pushes the next phase of its transformation strategy in the region.