MAM
WPP’s Cohn & Wolfe acquires majority stake in Brazil’s Grupo Maquina
MUMBAI: After acquiring a majority stake in India’s Six Degrees PR and Alphabet Consulting in September last year, WPP’s Cohn & Wolfe has made its second recent acquisition. The agency has now acquired a majority stake in Brazil’s public relations agency Grupo Maquina.
Maquina Cohn & Wolfe, with 240 employees across offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, has the combined talent and experience to meet demand for global integrated marketing services from Brazilian companies and multinational companies alike.
Maquina was founded in 1995 by Maristela Mafei. Today, Maquina is known for its digital and integrated communications work across numerous industries, including finance, education, consumer technology, retail, entertainment, government and tourism. The agency has specialty divisions focused on digital, video content, branding, advertising and package design services.
“Latin America has become a very important region for our clients and Brazil is a critical market for Cohn & Wolfe. After working with many good agencies, we were most impressed with Maquina’s excellence in digital and integrated marketing. They have an impressive client base and an equally impressive leadership team. We share values, including creativity, entrepreneurship and focus on client service, which will ensure a strong and long-lasting partnership and joint success,” says Cohn & Wolfe CEO Donna Imperato.
Mafei will remain director-general of Maquina Cohn & Wolfe, reporting to Imperato. Marcelo Diego and Daniella Camargos will continue in their roles as co-CEOs, reporting to Mafei. They will keep their positions as partners with Maquina Cohn & Wolfe.
The agency’s roster of both public and private sector clients includes Credit Suisse, EY, Zara, Xerox, Carrefour, L’Oréal, Nextel, MetLife, Bridgestone, GP Investments, Embratur, BRMalls, Qualicorp, Hypermarcas, Raízen, BRF, Grupo Estacio, Insper and Gafisa.
“We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary and I couldn’t be more proud of the accomplishments of our remarkable teams and the work they have done for our trusted clients,” says Mafei. “What I envision for our next 20 years can be achieved by becoming part of the Cohn & Wolfe family. This partnership will bring unmatched strengths globally that will benefit our current multinational clients and attract many more here and throughout Latin America. We will continue to provide the best of our culture, but will now be associated with one of the largest agencies in the world.”
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
