[ad_1]
With VMLY&R + WT (Wunderman Thompson), combining two mega-shops to form VML isn’t just additive. It multiplies their collective impact.
WPP wanted the most simplified but complete offering in the industry. In VML chief executive Jon Cook’s eyes, combining the two shops creates a behemoth far greater than the sum of its parts. Not only does VML carry out Cook’s main mission to have a vast array of capabilities, but it also delivers jaw-dropping scale with over 30,000 employees worldwide—creating the largest creative agency in the world.
In 2023, nearly every holding company and a number of notable independent agencies sought scale like the reimagined VML in some form: Dentsu’s consolidation mission gave Dentsu Creative scale and put all of its capabilities under one roof; Stagwell retooled four agencies into Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Omnicom’s media agencies have been touting scale with its “agencies-as-a-platform” mentality; Majority sold a 30% stake to WPP; Uncommon sold a majority stake to Havas to expand in the U.S. and across Europe; and Gut sold a majority stake to its client, Globant, in order to deepen its capabilities and scale quicker.
In 2024, Stagwell has already acquired Team Epiphany, a two-decades-old culturalist agency, and Accenture purchased Work & Co to boost its digital design and AI capabilities. It’s the start of a likely flurry of M&A activity across the industry as agencies try to meet clients’ needs by adding capabilities and reach across not just the U.S., but throughout the globe.
That is just one part of the agency, but it’s this massive ‘You complete me!’ Jerry Maguire kind of moment for that capability.
Jon Cook, chief executive, VML
Adding new capabilities and expanding an agency’s geographic footprint can accelerate its organic growth from existing clients, and it represents a more cost-effective path to growing revenue than constantly chasing new business. The lessons of scale at the holding company and independent levels are on display with VML and Gut, who each took unique routes for different reasons to achieve stronger services at a grander scale.
“Marketers are less about consolidating the relationships for simplicity and find more appealing the dynamic to go through one door and be able to tap into all these resources,” said Rachel Segall, co-founder of consultancy NBZ Partner.
Capabilities first, scale second
Other than Dentsu, which wiped clean most of its agency brands, every holding company now has a surplus of these divisions and would likely benefit from shedding a few. In WPP’s case, it pursued the chance to have the most complete offering in the industry with the Wunderman Thompson-VMLY&R merger because the two agencies complemented each other well, Cook told Adweek.
