16822: Chatting About Bias In AI.

 

Adweek published a perspective on addressing bias in AI. Written by an experiential creative and copywriter at Monk, the exposition presented challenges that emerged during the invention of AI-powered robot Sir Martian, named after Sir Martin Sorrell. Um, it sounds like AI bias inspired by a biased A-hole.

 

 

4 Ways to Mitigate Bias in AI and Close the Diversity Deficit

 

Key lessons from a 2024 Cannes activation

 

By Larissa Pontez

 

Feed a prompt to an AI image generator and you’re bound to encounter an insidious pattern: Do the people look … too stunning? Perhaps even wanton? 

 

Gender, race, body type, nationality, religion—you’re almost guaranteed to get prejudiced and outdated stereotypes when using these descriptors in prompts. And “wanton” is a deliberate adjective; it’s mostly used pejoratively toward women, and AI tends to oversexualize female images. These glaring imbalances showcase a recurring problem with AI outputs: the replication of societal biases, which can be harmful to actual people and communities. 

 

I wrestled with this firsthand while helping develop Sir Martian, one of our key AI demos featured at Cannes earlier this year. Sir Martian, playfully named after Sir Martin Sorrell, is an AI-powered robot in the form of an alien caricaturist. Throughout the festival, he invited attendees to sit down for a quick chat and a sketched portrait, based on their appearance and tastes. 

 

I’m proud that the demo was a success, because as you can imagine, this interaction was more than a simple conversation. And it taught me a lot about the privileges and responsibilities of shaping a new technology. Here’s what I learned. 

 

Words matter—your data sets the tone 

 

Most AI tools available for the general public are trained on datasets that aren’t accessible or visible to users, so I feel particularly fortunate to work at a company that creates and trains its own models. It really is a “great power, great responsibility” scenario. 

 

The foundation of any generative AI model should be diverse and comprehensive. By expanding the range of base images and training materials, developers can create AI systems that represent a broader spectrum of human experiences. This enriches outputs and helps combat entrenched biases. 

 

With Sir Martian, specificity was essential for aligning user inputs with desired outputs. After some trial and error, we found that we had to train the model combining visual input with very precise text prompts in order to get it to represent people accurately. 

When given a picture of a Black woman and the prompt “woman with braids,” the AI model automatically defaulted to a woman with German-style braids. We had to train and fine-tune it using specific terms like “cornrows” and “box braids” to get it to create accurate drawings. Giving the system a wider variety of terms to connect to visual references was crucial to getting more diverse depictions. 

 

This step was humbling because I encountered my own limitations in the process. For example, we don’t have a large Muslim population where I’m based in Brazil, yet a global audience traveling to Cannes would likely include women in hijabs or chadors. This prompted me to research the nuances between different articles of dress that, to an untrained eye, may have been seen as interchangeable. The experience highlighted the importance of stepping outside of our bubbles to recognize what we don’t know, in order to learn and incorporate diverse cultural elements that better serve global users. 

 

Diversity is (and isn’t) everyone’s responsibility 

 

As the only woman on the team building Sir Martian, the problematic depiction of women raised alarm bells for me early on but didn’t faze my male colleagues until I brought it to their attention. We need more diverse teams who can authentically lead AI in the right direction. But at the same time, the onus shouldn’t be on minorities alone to fix biases that have affected them for generations. 

 

Overcoming these biases demands collective effort. After I discovered flaws in Sir Martian’s AI model, I partnered closely with a developer on the project who was dedicated to addressing these issues. I reached out to a Black co-worker and Muslim women in our global community for their feedback on whether Sir Martian’s drawings were respectfully reflecting their identities. These are just some examples of the cross-disciplinary collaboration that needs to happen in order to make a change; once you flip the switch and understand what needs to be done, the rate of progress is astounding. 

 

The industry has a ways to go, but we’re seeing positive change. Since Sir Martian launched, we’ve instated a global AI policy to help staff become more conscious of common biases that occur in AI systems, such as data bias, algorithmic bias, and confirmation bias. Perhaps more importantly, fostering an inclusive environment encourages a shared responsibility in creating AI systems that accurately and fairly reflect diverse experiences, ultimately benefiting everyone. 

 

Know where to draw the line, and back up your decisions 

 

Our industry celebrates how AI will unlock personalization for everyone, but there are limits. The unfortunate reality is that, when it comes to accurately depicting everyone, we can’t perfectly address every difference on every project. But we can try to be as thorough as possible given the limits of technology, time, and budgets. 

 

When it comes to being more diverse and inclusive, for example, people naturally focus on accounting for a variety of skin tones. That’s great, but it’s often as far as we go. What about different body types and sizes? How might a generated portrait differ when someone is sitting in a wheelchair instead of standing up?

 

We should not only address these questions, but also begin asking them at a project’s inception. Those of us developing consumer-facing generative AI activations must be conscious of where our parameters fall, as well as able to justify the decisions we make. 

 

When working on Sir Martian for the demo in Cannes, we decided to leave children out of the training data, knowing that they were not our target audience. This was a conscious decision rather than a blind spot in our process, as representation and inclusion so often are in AI projects.

 

It’s time to do better 

 

We all know that AI is an amazing tool that has progressed by leaps and bounds over the last few years, but one thing it can’t do is correct our own blind spots. That’s on us to identify and address. 

 

AI serves as a mirror to our society, reflecting both its progress and its persistent challenges. If left unchecked, biases can become even more ingrained through AI. Tackling this issue isn’t a task for minorities alone—it’s something we all need to work on together. This shared commitment can help genuinely turn AI into a force for positive change. 

15542: Sir Martin Sorrell Adds Color To His Monastery.

 

Sir Martin Sorrell diversified S4 Capital by acquiring Cashmere and folding it into the Media.Monks enterprise.

 

Sorrell gushed, “We are delighted to welcome [Cashmere leadership] and their colleagues to Media.Monks. Their ability to translate contemporary culture into compelling content and reach diverse audiences is a rare talent and something we want to integrate at the heart of our content practice. It is particularly relevant, given the changes we see taking place around diversity and purpose, not only in the United States, but beyond.”

 

“…[G]iven the changes we see taking place around diversity and purpose…?” The changes being that clients are demanding inclusivity from their vendors? Amazing how Sorrell managed to seed the announcement with key words including diverse, integrate, relevant, diversity and purpose. Expect Sir Peanut to soon proclaim his growing empire is comprised of drones that “represent perhaps the most diverse example of diversity of any single organisation.”

 

Why, they might have to change the company name to Multicultural.Monks.

15514: NexTech Is NexTrash…

Adweek hyped its own soiree—NexTech Conference—which featured “brand executives and technology leaders,” including Sir Martin Sorrell.

 

This underscores how the industry has devolved over the years, mostly resulting from the scheming of characters like Sorrell. After all, back in the day, people rose to prominence in Adland by accomplishing something—usually involving the production of breakthrough work or innovations. While it could be argued that Sorrell’s “invention” involved mergers and takeovers to erect monolithic—and monotone—corporations, has the man actually created anything original? Has he ever written a clever headline or designed a cool app? Hell, he spends much of his airtime these days dissing the bureaucratic behemoths he built and inspired.

 

Yet here he is, serving as a keynote speaker and pseudo thought leader—allegedly representing the field that he helped destroy.

 

Oh, and the publicity still for the Adweek event (depicted above) shows that the diversity in digital mirrors the advertising industry.

 

Cue the Four Horsemen.

15090: The Rants Of Sir Martin Sorrell Are Getting Old And Tired.

The Guardian spoke with Sir Martin Sorrell, who predicted he won’t retire until age 83 at least. He also seems to believe he’ll be in the business longer than the highlight of his career—WPP—and he continues to opine the White holding company should be dismantled. “I think [advertising holding companies] are past their sell-by date and not fit for purpose any more,” said Sorrell, “and the only way forward is break-up.” Um, at nearly 78 years old, the same line about being past a “sell-by date and not fit for purpose” could be applied to Sorrell himself. It’s a safe bet he’ll still be filled with resentment and vitriol for WPP in 2025. Also, how many WPP drones are permitted to work beyond age 65…? Ageism does not exist in adland’s uppermost echelon.

 

Ad mogul Sir Martin Sorrell: ‘I didn’t want to retire—I have a point to prove’

 

By Mark Sweney

 

The former WPP boss on the economy, Facebook and why his S4 Capital is growing despite the coronavirus crisis

 

Sir Martin Sorrell’s headline-grabbing, acrimonious departure from WPP seemed set to mark an ignominious end to the global ambitions of the most powerful man in advertising. But two years on his new media venture, S4 Capital, has just reached a market valuation of £1.5bn, making it worth more than DMGT, the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail Online.

 

Sorrell is now head of the UK’s sixth-biggest listed media company, with a value equal to a fifth of his bete noire WPP, and has continued to grow it even during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Sorrell, 75, founded the business just months after resigning from WPP after an investigation into alleged personal misconduct. He has always strenuously denied wrongdoing, and departing as a “good leaver”—in the unusual position of not having a non-compete agreement—meant he was able to get up and running again at top speed.

 

Is Sorrell, who reckons he is still in with a “fighting chance” of achieving his pre-covid plan of doubling S4 Capital’s revenues and profits between 2020 and 2022, just a little bit smug about his rapid business bounce-back while firms such as WPP are now struggling?

 

“No, no,” he chuckles. “People ask me what motivates me, what drives me, why is it I didn’t retire. One reason is my mother’s genes, that’s a third of it, a third is I didn’t want to retire and play golf and do a portfolio job. And a third is that I have a point to prove.”

 

Sorrell feels that the business is performing in a “digital sweet spot” with two-thirds of revenues coming from creating digital advertising content, centred on the MediaMonks business, and one-third on automated online ad buying. Just more than half of total revenues come from creating campaigns and planning ad strategy for technology companies, which raises the question of what Sorrell thinks about the widespread advertising boycott of Facebook this month.

 

“At the heart of this issue is whether these platforms are tech companies or media companies, a publisher,” he says. “They all say they are tech companies. I’ve always held the view they are publishers and they must act like publishers and be responsible for their content. They can’t say they are digital engineers tightening nuts on digital pipes with digital spanners and are not responsible for digital content that flows through those pipes. They are.”

 

However, despite this belief he does not think that the ad boycott was the right approach to force Facebook to change. He says that since the last big ad boycott against YouTube in 2017, over issues including brand safety, the tech companies have “moved considerably”. He points to Facebook hiring tens of thousands of staff to monitor content, changes to algorithms, the rooting-out of offensive social media groups and the ban on political advertising, by Google and Twitter at least.

 

“I’m not of a view that a boycott is the right way to go,” he says. “The best way for advertisers to deal with this is to have that direct conversation with them. A threat is no good once it is exercised, a threat is only good if it is not exercised.”

 

He believes the impact of the coronavirus on the ad industry reached its nadir in April. Always fond of coining a phrase to describe the shape of an economic recovery, his latest prediction is that the world is likely to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic in a “reverse square root”.

 

Sorrell, who famously labelled last decade’s advertising recession as “bath shaped”, says that while specific industry sectors will have their own recovery shapes—V, U, L and even “a chair”—the overall global economy is likely to reset at a lower level.

 

“If you invert the square root you drop, recover but not to the extent before,” he says. “Overall it’s the best thing I’ve come across to describe it.”

 

Sorrell remains one of WPP’s biggest shareholders, holding a £150m stake, and also its most vocal and vociferous critic. He believes it should be broken up, so has anyone approached him about making an offer for some of WPP’s digital ad assets?

“No, amazingly no one seems interested in trying anything,” he says. “I wish someone would have a go. I think [advertising holding companies] are past their sell-by date and not fit for purpose any more and the only way forward is break-up. I’m not bitter; I’d describe it as realistic.”

 

When Sorrell set up S4 Capital, in which he has to date invested more than £60m of his own money, it was with an initial five year plan to build the business. Will he feel his come back is complete and retire then?

 

“I actually said that at the end of the fifth year if people wanted me to stay on and I felt mentally and physically able, I’d do another five years,” he says. “I’ll be 78 at the end of the first cycle. If I can totter on until 83 I may do that. If you asked me at the moment to pin my flag to the mast I’d do another five years.”

15083: Sir Martin Sorrell Pisses On His Messy, Monolithic Masterpiece.

MediaPost published commentary from S4 Capital Honcho Sir Martin Sorrell, who referred to his monstrous creation—WPP—as currently being “a pig’s breakfast” and opined the White holding company should be broken up. Okay, if a WPP drone gets let go, the standard procedure is to sign a separation agreement prohibiting the ex-employee from suing or even criticizing the company. So how come Sorrell—who pocketed a multimillion-dollar exit package—is allowed to openly diss the outhouse he erected?

 

Martin Sorrell's Disruption Strategy

 

By Richard Whitman

 

Martin Sorrell said Friday that his new holding company S4 Capital is closing in on what he termed “double unicorn” status, or a valuation of $2 billion. 

 

The firm is now comprised of 13 merged companies (and counting) hubbed around content creator Media Monks and programmatic company MightyHive. First-party data remains a key focus. 

 

Another deal is close to fruition and expected to be announced later this month, Sorrell disclosed at a streaming event hosted by media and marketing consultant ID Comms. 

 

Part of Sorrell’s disruption strategy, he said, was to find merger candidates as opposed to acquisition candidates.

 

“If you want to sell, we’re not interested,” Sorrell said. “If you want to buy in” and have a “missionary zeal” for the business, that’s what S4 is looking for. Nothing like some skin in the game to keep someone waking up in the morning “with their heart in their mouth” and focused on success, he added. 

 

The company is on the prowl for so-called “whoppers” or clients that account for 5% or more the firm’s total revenue. 

 

According to Scott Spirit, S4’s Chief Growth Officer who also participated in the event, the firm has been invited to more and bigger pitches in the last nine months, including two big pitches going on now. Increasingly, companies triggering bigger pitches want to team up with a single entity, although Sorrell said some of those firms have been willing to let S4 compete for pieces and not the whole scope. 

 

S4 is more interested in pitches led by “change agents,” Sorrell said. Many of its accounts are tied to newer models growing in popularity, including hybrid, embedded and in-house work. 

 

Also, the firm is keen on what Sorrell termed a “land and expand” strategy, in which the firm wins a piece of business from a client and builds on it organically. “The best way to evaluate someone is to work with them,” he said. 

 

Sorrell acknowledged that part of what drives him at 75 to build a big new “disrupter” company is how things turned out two years ago at WPP, where he was CEO for 30-plus years. He insists it was his choice to leave, although others say he was forced out.

 

The current WPP leadership is “making a pig's breakfast of it,” he said, noting the continuing decline in the holding company’s value. (It’s been dropping for at least five years.) “I chose to resign, and they’re paying a price for it.” 

 

The only solution to the holding-company’s problems, said Sorrell, is to break the company up. He was basically buying market share during his tenure, Sorrell said. That made sense for a time, he added. Now, “it’s gone.”

 

You have to wonder though if Sorrell would be so quick to dismantle a company he spent three decades building if he were still in charge. My guess is he’d wake up every morning with his heart in his mouth thinking about alternative solutions.

14827: Sir Martin Sorrell Reportedly Stages Bitch-Slapping Slapstick Skit.

Campaign reported on an alleged comical confrontation between Sir Martin Sorrell and ex-colleague Jim Prior after Sorrell took offense to comments Prior made about S4 Capital in an interview. The Financial Times claimed Sorrell slapped Prior’s face during a heated exchange, but Sorrell denies the faceoff turned physical. Hey, Sorrell is not prone to violence, opting to terminate chauffeurs and yell at administrative assistants—although he’s probably slapped the ass of a prostitute or party hostess on occasion.

14575: The Seven Deadly Sins Of Sir Martin Sorrell.

Advertising Age reported on the latest Sir Martin Sorrell escapades with a headline claiming that the diminutive pimp said clients are digging his “faster, better, cheaper” S4 enterprise. Not sure if the Ad Age scribe was taking creative liberties, as the piece didn’t quote Sorrell uttering the phrase. If he did make the statement, it’s just another example of his awfulness. After all, Sorrell’s highly responsible for the slow, worse and expensive business model he now implies is unsuccessful as he labels his fresh venture as a “new era” peanut. Yet he’s still financially benefiting off the “old era” digital advertising and marketing services company he created. Sorrell suffers from more pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth than ever.

Sorrell says ‘faster, better, cheaper’ S4 is resonating with clients

Venture’s inaugural results released today

By Megan Graham

S4 Capital reported an operating loss during its inaugural preliminary 2018 results today, yet Martin Sorrell’s new digital marketing venture showed it has gained a fair amount of traction since its formation in May.

The company saw pro-forma revenue—which refers to consolidated results of MediaMonks, MightyHive and S4Capital as if the group had existed in full for the year—increase 58 percent from 2017 to £135.9 million or $181.5 million. It reported an operating loss of £8.5 million or $11.3 million.

After officially launching last year as a “new era” digital advertising and marketing services company via a reverse takeover of Derriston Capital, S4 brought MediaMonks on board last July and then acquired MightyHive in December. S4 now has approximately 1,200 employees in 16 countries and says it has new-business assignments from Mondelez, Bayer, Nestle, Procter & Gamble and more.

The company said its offering of first-party data-fueled digital content and programming is resonating with clients, as is a single profit-and-loss statement structure and a “faster, better, cheaper” positioning.

“With this environment, what clients want to do is take back control,” Sorrell said. “That’s the line that you may recall that Brexiteers used very successfully in the referendum campaign in the U.K. two or three years ago. I think it’s exactly the same with clients. They want to take back control of their destiny … They feel that they have to exercise control and the battleground is first-party data and data generally, having control of that and if the platforms are not willing to share that data ... what clients are going to do is try and develop their first-party data and we’re intimately involved in trying to do that with them.”

Wesley ter Haar, MediaMonks founder and an S4 board member, said on a Monday morning results call that the digital production agency believes the traditional model is still very focused on “hero assets,” in many cases TV ads, and that the effort that goes into creating content for the rest of the media ecosystem is less evolved.

“We think ideas are very important,” ter Haar said on the call. “But we don’t think we’re currently in a landscape where it’s all about a single big idea. It’s a creative framework and within that framework we need to be be hypertargered, driven by data, personalized, constantly A/B testing, constantly optimizing against all of these different channels that the actual media buy is bought against … So less about a single big idea and more about lots of smaller ideas, hypertargeted and really attached to the context of the channel they’re being distributed on.”

MightyHive and MediaMonks also talked through case studies of how they’re working with clients. For MediaMonks’ work with Netflix show “Narcos,” ter Haar said the shop is seeing an exponential need for content while budgets are stagnant or decreasing. He said with that trend comes a focus on data-driven creative. For Narcos, he said the shop is using first-party and third-party data signals along with a creative framework to create “a million-and-a-half different possibilities of tailored ads.”

He said this is cutting costs by 40 percent, will cut time to market from 12 weeks to four weeks and will increase the performance of the ads since they’re better-targeted and more personalized.

14404: Sir Martin Sorrell’s Nuts Are Growing.

Advertising Age reported Sir Martin Sorrell acquired San Francisco-based digital media and programmatic consultancy MightyHive, adding the enterprise to his S4 Capital peanut factory. “The merger with MightyHive marks an important second strategic step for S4 Capital,” quipped Sorrell. “The peanut has now morphed into a coconut, and is growing and ripening.” You’d think Sorrell would drop the peanut jokes, given that he left WPP while being investigated for having his nutsack serviced by a hooker.

S4’s acquisition of MightyHive is official

Martin Sorrell’s S4 announces deal valued at $150M for the San Francisco-based digital media and programmatic consultancy

By Megan Graham

Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital says the much buzzed-about potential acquisition of San Francisco-based digital media and programmatic consultancy MightyHive is on — announcing early Tuesday a deal valued at $150 million.

S4 — whose stated focus is on digital creative, digital media buying and planning and first-party data — said in a London Stock Exchange U.K. regulatory disclosure that programmatic advertising spend is seeing significant growth and that MightyHive is “well-positioned to capitalize on the digital transformation and disruption of marketing.” MightyHive saw revenue increase at a compound annual growth rate of 129 percent from 2015 to 2017, S4 said.

MightyHive will become a wholly owned subsidiary of S4 and CEO and co-founder Pete Kim and COO and co-founder Christopher Martin will join the S4 Capital board of directors while remaining in their day-to-day roles at MightyHive.

Six-year-old MightyHive — which has offices in New York, London, Singapore, Toronto, Stockholm and Sydney — realized about a year ago it was going to need a partner to grow at the clip it desired, Kim says. MightyHive says its hundreds of clients include OpenTable, Sephora, Sprint and US Bank. Kim says the company aims to help agencies and advertisers modernize themselves for a new era of digital marketing. MightyHive provides consulting and services in the realm of media operations and training, data strategy and analytics.

Sorrell tells Ad Age that S4 knew of MightyHive’s reputation in the digital media buying and planning realm and threw its hat in the ring for a potential deal a few months ago — which became a “complex and demanding process,” he says.

Along with MediaMonks, the Dutch digital production company S4 announced it would acquire five months ago, Kim says he saw the “very, very strong appeal” in the prospect of marrying creative and media within S4. “We really see the long-term benefits and potential of really powerfully recombining these things,” Kim says.

S4 has an operating model in which it has a single profit-and-loss statement, rather than fragmented P&Ls across different businesses, and Sorrell says its elements will work together to feel more unitary than a traditional holding company or parent company.

Sorrell’s access to major clients is likely attractive to an ambitious entrepreneur, said Julie Langley, a partner at M&A adviser Results International, in an emailed statement. She said MediaMonks and MightyHive are “highly complementary businesses” that will bring together digital-first content with digital-first media buying. Langley added MightyHive also helps clients wanting to bring in-house certain disciplines, a trend that’s been widely discussed in the industry.

To fund the cash component of the deal, S4 plans to raise £74 million by issuing new shares. The company said in the disclosure it expects the admission of new ordinary shares and the completion of the merger to occur on Dec. 24, 2018.

New capital raising will be led by Stanhope Entrepreneurs Fund, a growth-capital fund whose founder and CEO will join S4’s board upon admission. The company added that MediaMonks executives Victor Knaap, Wesley ter Haar and Peter Rademaker have been appointed as S4 directors. Kim and MightyHive’s Martin have been appointed S4 directors conditionally.

As for what’s next for S4, Sorrell says a key step will be deepening the client base it will have between MediaMonks and MightyHive.

“The real opportunity is organic growth,” he tells Ad Age. “We will succeed or fail on the basis of organic growth.”

Sorrell says S4 has “three quarters to seven-eighths” of what it needs at this point. Geographically the company has a number of target areas, he says and while MightyHive and MediaMonks have some separate geographic footprints, “[there are] some very strong geographical synergies that we can get by bringing the two businesses closer together,” according to Sorrell.

In terms of further acquisition opportunities, Sorrell says he’d like to see S4’s content and digital media buying and planning businesses further developed, along with first-party data. He said first-party data is very difficult to find and expensive but important.

“In the meantime, we’ll work with very significant clients who have strong databases and first-party data to develop their data,” he says.

Sorrell continued his long-running “peanut” joke in the acquisition disclosure. In public appearances and interviews, Sorrell has previously described S4 Capital as a “peanut” in comparison to WPP to insinuate that it is not in competition with the company he previously founded, grew for decades, and then exited following an internal investigation.

“The merger with MightyHive marks an important second strategic step for S4 Capital. The peanut has now morphed into a coconut, and is growing and ripening,” he said.

14227: Peanuts And Nutcases.

Advertising Age reported Sir Martin Sorrell succeeded in acquiring MediaMonks, which could lead to him losing millions in share awards from his exit package with WPP. Whatever. It seems like only yesterday—versus last April—that Sorrell proclaimed his undying love for WPP. Yet his first major move with S4 Capital involved outbidding his former lover, wooing a Dutch digital production company into the new whorehouse holding company. Sorrell had also assured everyone that his fresh enterprise posed no threat to WPP, insisting S4 was a “peanut” compared to his original empire. Well, it appears Sorrell might lose some money—which is likely peanuts for him—while kicking his ex-partners in the nuts. The ultimate losers, however, are everyone nutty enough to be working for WPP or S4 right now. Smart employees are advised to leave in a Jif.

Sorrell won MediaMonks, but will he lose WPP payout?

By Megan Graham

Martin Sorrell won the battle to acquire Dutch digital production company MediaMonks. But WPP, the holding company he formally helmed, reiterated on Tuesday that he may lose out on a multi-million dollar payout.

The acquisition by Sorrell’s S4 Capital was confirmed early Tuesday morning in an announcement to the London Stock Exchange. Shareholders of MediaMonks, which has revenues of $129 million, will receive cash and shares in S4 Capital. S4 describes the deal as a merger and says its objective is to “provide clients with digital services, which are agile, efficient, and of premium creative quality.”

“WPP’s lawyers wrote to Sir Martin’s lawyers last week pointing out the breach of his confidentiality undertakings in his approach to Mediamonks after his resignation from WPP,” a WPP spokesman said Tuesday. “Despite subsequent protestations from Sir Martin’s lawyers, we are well aware of the facts and he has jeopardised his LTIP entitlement.”

“LTIP” refers to a long-term incentive plan entitlement for Sorrell, as outlined in a contract from 2008.

Asked whether it would still pay Sorrell the share awards it says he is risking, WPP declined to comment.

As for Sorrell, “Sir Martin strenuously denies the allegation and is confident that the facts will speak for themselves,” said a spokesman.

“The WPP legal position has no merit,” the spokesman added. “We had taken legal advice before moving forward. The legal letters were just a feeble and weak attempt to disrupt our bid—and failed.”

During WPP’s annual general meeting in June, one shareholder pointed out that without further information shareholders would not be able to assess whether a termination package for Sorrell was appropriate. Another asked why Sorrell’s intention to start his own advertising company didn’t constitute “gross misconduct” in and of itself.

At that meeting, WPP released proxy vote results that indicated about 27 percent opposed the company’s compensation report, not including abstentions. That compensation report includes the long-term incentive plan entitlement.

The long-term incentive plan outlines that Sorrell is entitled to share awards worth up to approximately $23 million (£20 million) in future payments.

WPP leaders at the June meeting cited Sorrell’s claim that he didn’t see himself as competition. In public appearances and interviews, Sorrell has compared S4 Capital to a “peanut” in comparison to the holding company.

As for his venture competing with his former company, Sorrell said onstage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, “I have to admit that some people have peanut allergies.”