WPP’s GroupM has announced plans to merge the operations of MediaCom and Essence. Post its merger, the agency will be rebranded as EssenceMediacom. The rollout will begin in 2023 and at the initial stage, the agency’s focus will be on the major markets. In the UK, however, the two agencies will continue to operate separately for a period of time due to client conflicts. The global accounts of the two agencies include Google, NBCUniversal and Mars. As per the various media reports, Nick Lawson, the global CEO of MediaCom will head the combined entity. Meanwhile, Kyoko Matsushita, the global CEO, will be promoted to a new role as WPP’s CEO in Japan.
As per the reports, Essence and MediaCom would fuse the digital and data-driven expertise of Essence with MediaCom’s multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise. This was not just across digital but across the full spectrum of media channels.
For Christian Juhl, global CEO, GroupM, the simplification drive across the media division was about driving growth and not cutting costs or jobs. “This isn’t any kind of exercise in trying to create synergies on the cost side, it’s really about creating synergies for growth and opportunities for our clients going forward. The merger would offer clients a one-stop shop that married Essence’s digital creative technology and data driven performance with MediaCom’s global scale, media planning and brand-building capabilities,” he highlighted.
For MediaCom, the merger would bolster its digital and performance credentials as it would be able to tap into WPP’s digital and Google specialist agency. With the merger, GroupM will now have three flagship agencies—EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker.
Additionally, GroupM will be combining Finecast, Xaxis and GroupM services into a 9,000 strong cross channel performance platform. It will be called Group M Nexus. The agency will be responsible for the activation of more than two million campaigns each year. The agency will be led by Nicolas Bidon, who was previously the global chief executive of Xaxis.
According to the reports, the final part of the global restructure would be Mindshare integrating Neo’s 1,200 performance experts, consultants and digital-first services into its offering.
Neo already operated within the Mindshare network but post the merger, it would adopt the Mindshare branding.
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