Peter Kafka

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Twitter Signs Its Second Big Ad Deal, This Time With WPP

Asa Mathat | D: All Things Digital

In April, Twitter linked up with ad giant Starcom in a deal worth “hundreds of millions” over a few years. Now it has another one, with Starcom’s rival WPP.

WPP’s press release doesn’t mention a dollar value, but the broad strokes sound similar to the earlier pact: A “global strategic partnership” that will “see the launch of new data products and services, the integration of Twitter data into key WPP media and analytics platforms, training for staff in the application of these new capabilities and a partnership approach to key clients and markets.”

In English: Twitter will try to make it very easy for WPP to spend a bunch of money on the service, and WPP has likely committed to spending a bunch of money on the service.

Note that we’ve seen similar pacts with new media companies and ad giants before, notably Google.

And, again, this is the kind of pact that’s very nice to have as you prepare to go public. Not that Dick Costolo says he spends any time thinking about that. Here’s the Twitter CEO insisting that’s the case at the D: All Things Digital conference last month.

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