Category: Corporate News

This weekend, a technical glitch paralyzed the payment services of several banks. But what is being described as a technical glitch actually reveals a much deeper symbolic crisis.

💳 The bug didn’t just prevent transfers and payments. It affected a fundamental symbol: our relationship with money. In a context of growing mistrust of financial institutions, this failure has reignited conspiracy theories about citizens losing control of their money, the forced digitization of payment methods, and even theories of collapse.

📊 What social media is saying According to a Talkwalker analysis of two of the banks affected, this event generated:

📈 The biggest spike in mentions in 13 months

💬 65,000 mentions over the weekend, almost twice as many as previous peaks

📉 The biggest drop in sentiment in 13 months

😠 60% negative sentiment

The most viral posts did not focus on the technical nature of the bug, but on political and societal interpretations. The conspiracy theory sphere seized on the subject, linking it to the call for cash payments scheduled for September 10.

🧠 Key takeaways

In a world where every technical incident can turn into a symbolic crisis, speed, transparency, and contextualization are the pillars of effective communication.

It is no longer just a matter of fixing the problem, but of reassuring, explaining, and anticipating in order to preserve the contract of trust between the brand and its users.

It may be tempting for the company affected by the outage to remain silent. But staying silent means losing control of the narrative, which can then be exploited by others.

🎯 Internship – Junior Business Communications Consultant

Join a leading business communications firm based in Paris’s 1st arrondissement starting in summer 2025!

▶️ What you’ll be doing: monitoring, press relations, stakeholder mapping, project management, corporate communications.

🎓 Do you have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, are you thorough and curious, and do you have strong analytical and writing skills?

📩 Send your resume and a short cover letter to recrutement@mascaret.eu

This week, we are proud to highlight the impressive visibility of our client SpaceDreamS in Le Figaro, which devoted a long article to its bold vision of access to space on the occasion of the #Bourget hashtag trade show.

✨ Far from making abstract promises, Christian Canart, CEO of SpaceDreamS, and his team are applying a simple but revolutionary principle to the space sector: sharing launch pads in the same way that runways are shared at airports. It’s an industrial, pragmatic approach designed to support the rise of small and medium-sized launchers.

Their goal? To create a global network of universal, mobile space bases capable of accommodating light launchers, reducing launch costs by half, and opening up access to space to new public and private players.

👏 Bravo to the SpaceDreamS teams. Thank you for your trust!

A clash of realities or a widening of the Overton window?

The clash of realities is that of a Europe of 27, or that of the founding fathers, according to some commentators, seeking its place in the economic and technological competition between China and the US. A Europe forced to juggle between a minimalist agreement with the US and a delicate dance with Beijing.

What if the Overton window widened to the point where “Make Europe Great Again” became audible?

European sovereignty, a concept unknown in Washington, is gradually becoming a shared horizon. Fiction or reality?

Businesses, civil society, journalists, international think tanks… all came together for an edition marked by intense discussions and a wealth of perspectives.

📆 See you in a year.

Laure Pallez, Senior Partner at Mascaret Partners, is receiving Liz Oxhorn, the founder of Sonnet, a political and policy communications firm.  Liz has worked on five US presidential elections – including most recently on the K. Harris for President campaign – and served in the Obama White House.

Some of the themes covered in this informal conversation:

• What recent event in the US, besides the 2024 election, provides insights into the current global disruption? 

• What does it take to overcome disinformation in an era of fragmented information consumption?

• What should your social media mix look like in this new environment? Why are podcasts and Substack hot right now?

• What is the most important characteristic in communications right now? Etc.

Click here to listen to the entire podcast!

Jean-Claude Mailly joins Mascaret (formerly Dentsu Consulting) as Senior Advisor.

We are delighted to announce that Jean-Claude Mailly, former Secretary General of Force Ouvrière, has joined Mascaret as Senior Advisor.

Drawing on his expertise and 14 years’ experience at the head of the trade union, Jean-Claude Mailly will play a key role in supporting our customers on strategic and sensitive issues, particularly in the management and communication of relations between employees, management and social partners.

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Mascaret at the heart of the international promotion of French innovation in security/safety/cybersecurity at Intersec 2024!

We are delighted to share that Mascaret (formerly Dentsu Consulting) was represented at Intersec 2024 Dubai by our senior partner, Reza SADRI. This event is renowned as a leading security, safety and cybersecurity show, attracting experts and industry leaders from all over the world, especially from the Asian continent.

The event provided an ideal platform to explore cutting-edge innovations and discuss emerging trends in the security sectors.

For Mascaret, 2023 was a pivotal year, synonymous with challenges and successes. New customers, partnerships with key players, international events, development of our offering, Agency of the Year award in the business communications category and, above all, a fund-raising campaign to provide us with the means to sustain our growth.

On the agenda for 2024: ramping up business communications, working on perception models, opinion and AI…

A big thank you to our employees, customers and partners for their trust, and may 2024 be a year full of success and ambition!

🌊 Mascaret sails ahead: we’re voted Agency of the Year 2023 in the Business Communication category at the Agency of the Year Grand Prix. 🌊

This distinction is recognition for the entire team at Mascaret (formerly Dentsu Consulting), who instill passion and dedication to carry our value proposition high. Over the years, Mascaret has built up a unique expertise, requiring an excellent understanding of intangible assets and the aspirations of different stakeholders.

At Mascaret, we intervene at crucial moments when the perception of the company becomes a major economic issue. Our mission? To help our customers structure and enhance the value of their actions in the eyes of their stakeholders. We rely on three fundamental pillars:

💡Analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions of the company;
💡Analysis of intangible assets;
💡An ability to execute action plans led by experienced associates.

The Agency of the Year Grand Prix, a prestigious event traditionally sponsored by the Minister of Culture and the Secretary of State for the Digital Sector, has been rewarding excellence for over 40 years, and crowns a remarkable year for us. This distinction comes on top of the “Innovative Company” label awarded by Bpifrance and the announcement of our recent fund-raising. These successes augur well for 2024, promising a new wave of achievement and innovation!

PRESS RELEASE

Mascaret, leader in business communications consulting, welcomes Entrepreneur Invest fund to accelerate growth

Paris, December 07, 2023 – Mascaret (formerly Dentsu Consulting), a business communications consultancy, has opened up 23.8% of its capital to the Entrepreneur Invest fund, a leader in equity and convertible bond financing for growth SMEs.

“We were looking for an investor to support the €10m of investments we intend to make over the next 3 years, and a genuine partner capable of accompanying us in this growth process. We naturally chose Entrepreneur Invest for its entrepreneurial philosophy and track record“, says Benjamin Grange, Senior Partner and Chairman of Mascaret.

This round of financing will enable the firm to further develop its proprietary tools and make targeted acquisitions to increase its market share in France.

“We are delighted to support Benjamin Grange and his teams in their project to create a leader in business communications. We were seduced by their ambition to integrate and acquire talent and teams in this segment, in order to meet the transformation needs of corporate communications“, declares Bertrand Folliet and Marouane Bahri, Partners at Entrepreneur Invest.

Business communications, a market that has been growing for the past 10 years, is a response to the challenges faced by today’s executives: fostering a perception of the company’s economic value, promoting understanding of major transformations within the company, engaging stakeholders, mastering reputational risks linked to public opinion… Since its acquisition (2021) from the Dentsu group by its founders, Mascaret has offered this combination of expertise to provide a specific response to these new challenges.

Mascaret’s clients include executives from the SBF120, ETIs, SMEs, leaders of major projects, start-up bosses, investment funds, unions, territories, leaders of public entities, associations and political leaders.

About Mascaret

Founded in 2016 under the name Dentsu Consulting, Mascaret is now the leading business communications firm in France. Mascaret develops a company’s economic value, its expression and its perception by stakeholders (investors, market, shareholders, employees, civil society, institutional and socio-economic partners) at pivotal moments: acquisition, merger, exit, A/B/C/D fundraising, LBO, joint venture, securities transaction, refinancing, governance evolution, transformation plan, new leader, change of course, economic crisis. For public leaders and elected representatives, we support key electoral deadlines.

Mascaret teams operate in France and in 44 countries through the IPRN network. Mascaret’s governance is based on a partnership model that involves its entrepreneur-partners in day-to-day operations. For us, this is the only model that guarantees the long-term commitment of our teams to our customers.

To find out more: www.mascaret.eu

About Entrepreneur Invest

Founded in 2000, Entrepreneur Invest is an independent, AMF-accredited asset management company specializing in unlisted investments. It manages funds in the fields of SME financing, real estate and funds of funds, for which it ensures the management, structuring and rigorous selection of partners.

Entrepreneur Invest was founded and is run by entrepreneurs who have successfully gone through the various stages of a company’s life: creation, development, turnaround, sale or IPO.

A major player in the financing of French companies, with €1.5 billion raised, Entrepreneur Invest has carried out over 250 equity and bond investments in SMEs, and currently supports nearly 100 companies in a wide range of sectors: software, industry, media & communications, education, tourism & leisure, B2B services, healthcare, e-commerce, etc. Entrepreneur Invest’s philosophy is to go beyond being a provider of capital by establishing an ongoing dialogue with managers, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, to assist companies in their strategic, commercial, operational and financial choices. This takes the form of experience-sharing between members of the investment team, participation in strategic discussions and access to a network of qualified partners.

To find out more: www.entrepreneurinvest.com

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