Executive Summary
The agency world has consolidated its talent to streamline operations and simplify how clients interact or leverage integrated offerings. WPP is a prime example: Last year, WPP merged its creative agencies Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R to form VML. Then WPP merged two of its largest communication agencies, Hill & Knowlton and BCW, to form Burson. Now, WPP has merged The&Partnership with mSix&Partners to form an AI-centric agency under the new global brand T&Pm.
Major holding companies are transforming from being advertising centric or “platform based” to becoming “intelligent systems” companies, buying complementary agency offerings, heavily investing in R&D, AI, and other proprietary technological innovations, and forming strategic partnerships with tech giants.
Publicis Groupe announced it is investing 300 million euros to strengthen its AI capabilities and is leveraging past acquisitions like data giant Epsilon and digital transformation firm Sapient. Similarly, WPP announced AI investments for training, recruitment, licenses, IT software, and cloud infrastructure.
The race is on as other martech players like Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce, and Google invest significant human and capital resources to take a lead in this growing area. AI remains the topic du jour. Check out our expanded section on AI developments.
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Newsworthy Reports and Recent Developments
At AMS, we approach the agency management discipline as four distinct but complementary practice areas – Talent, Work and Performance, Financials, and Agency Reviews and Roster Changes – which is how we categorize the following developments.
Table of Contents
Talent……………. page 2
Work and Performance………………… page 9
Financials…………………………. page 12
Agency Reviews and Roster Changes……………… page 17
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