What you need to know:

• Henry Tajer has bought into a newly-created marketing services firm, The Influence Group and becomes CEO.
• The current deal was born out of acquisition conversations with the founders of Pollinate and Social Soup during Tajer’s tenure as Mediabrands boss.
• Social Soup CEO Sharyn Smith and Pollinate CEO Howard Parry-Husbands opted against selling after “many” holdco advances.
• Per Sharyn Smith: “Henry was one of the closest that I considered saying yes to, and that was really because I could see Henry really got what we did at that time”.  
• The Influence Group claims to have grown revenues 30 per cent a year since 2017 and currently has 50 staff with Tajer suggesting revenues will at least double in the next 12 months.
• Tajer said the company was "well capitalised" and that mergers and acquisitions are likely down the track. 
• On his sudden ousting from Dentsu Aegis in late 2019 Tajer said: “The business was in a challenging position. How we wanted to deal with some of those challenges was difficult between myself and some of the other members of the executive in London and in Tokyo”. 
• Tajer, Smith and Parry-Husbands join Mi3's podcast next week for a full briefing.

The former global head of IPG Mediabrands who launched Amazon’s Media business in Australia, Henry Tajer, has resurfaced, taking a minority but “significant” stake in the newly formed The Influence Group. 

He joins as CEO to drive an ambitious growth agenda alongside Sharyn Smith and Howard Parry-Husbands, respective founders of Social Soup and Pollinate, which form the basis of the new venture. The married couple remain majority shareholders in The Influence Group and will continue running their business units.

The trio argue influence – online and offline – is set for massive growth and to date has been driven by smaller operatives good at tactics but don’t link influence into broader business strategic imperatives. 

“We're in a segment within the marketing and media industry that no one's really paying any attention to,” Tajer told Mi3. “We’re now in a bit of a flashpoint moment, no different to about 15 years ago when we were having the same sort of conversations around paid search. Google was in town, they were talking to everyone about the need to buy the right terms to support what was happening in advertising. Influence is very much in the same place right now where the inclusion of influence into the thinking at the beginning of the process… is a huge opportunity for marketers and for brands. It's totally undercooked.”

Smith said Social Soup was the biggest influence agency in the country but holding groups were all setting up influencer marketing shops “and every agency is sort of popping that on as an add on service. But there's no leadership currently in the industry. We are the leading agency but I think our sort of reputation at that sort of more senior level and being able to elevate that conversation is what we want to do. That's why we're here.”

Parry-Husbands said there had been a step change in society and “that's now going to play out, and it's going to play out in media and marketing as well.” 

Dentsu troubles and torments

More than two-years after he was ousted 10 months into the CEO role at Dentsu Aegis Network following a clash with global honchos over cleaning up the Australian business, Tajer made his first public comments on the split.

“There's only so much I can say for obvious reasons, and I'm legally obligated to be discreet, and that's both ways,” he told Mi3. “But the business was in a challenging position. I was briefed on the business and was asked to help deal with some of those challenges. In the time that I was there, I definitely saw the challenges, and there were challenges that many of the companies in the industry were dealing with. We got on top of a lot of those. How we wanted to deal with some of those challenges was difficult between myself and some of the other members of the executive in London and in Tokyo. And it got to the point where that difficulty was getting in the way of dealing with the challenges. And so we mutually agreed that the time had come for us to part company, and I was happy to do so as they were. And I think there's some wonderful people there. They have dealt with some of their challenges, but they've still got some challenges and I wish them the best.”

When asked if the “challenges” were linked to the way the company generated revenues, Tajer said: “No, I don't think getting into what the challenges are is actually important. They're just different challenges.”

Tajer, Smith and Parry-Husbands will feature on Mi3’s podcast in next Tuesday’s edition.