By Kristina Monllos • August 30, 2024 •
Ivy Liu
Agency consolidation once again continues apace.
Omnicom’s Doremus+Co, a 121-year-old agency that specializes in business-to-business work, will merge with Merkley and Partners, another Omnicom-owned agency, as of Sept. 30, according to two sources who have been made aware of the change. The move is part of ongoing consolidation throughout agencies and holding companies as holding companies look for ways to drive efficiencies and boost revenue.
It’s unclear what the move will mean for the agencies’ clients or employees. While the Doremus’ brand and B2B capabilities will continue, the shop will now share resources including HR, accounting and creative, among others, with Merkley and Partners. Representatives for Merkley and Partners and Omnicom declined to comment. Representatives for Doremus+Co did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Doremus+Co was founded in 1903 in New York and has expanded over the years to have offices in San Francisco, London, Frankfurt, Beijing and Shanghai as well as worked for clients like T-Mobile, Intel and Meta, among others, according to the agency’s website. Merkley and Partners, meanwhile, has worked for clients like Mercedes-Benz, Bic and White Castle, per the agency’s website. The full-service shop was founded in 1993 and is based in New York.
This latest move isn’t the only strategic shifts as of late from the holding company amid Q3. Earlier this week, Omnicom announced that it had formed a new structure for its creative agencies deemed the Omnicom Advertising Group. The group, which includes Omnicom creative agencies “BBDO, DDB, TBWA, as well as leading agencies within the Advertising Collective including Goodby Silverstein & Partners, GSD&M, Merkley & Partners and Zimmerman,” according to a release, will be led by former TBWA Worldwide CEO Troy Ruhanen.
“Clients want best-in-class talent, innovation and seamless delivery of creative services around the globe,” said John Wren, chairman and CEO of Omnicom, in a statement in the release. “OAG will deliver on that promise while allowing our agency cultures to remain strong and evolve through shared investments and best practices.”
Omnicom’s implementation of a new structure with OAG doesn’t move away from agency brands unlike other holding company shifts like, for example, dentsu’s restructure, which streamlined the agency brands.
At the same time, holding company agency consolidation is nothing new. In recent years, agencies like VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson have merged to become simply VML. That’s after the consolidation of VML with the likes of Y&R as well as Wunderman and J.Walter Thompson. As agencies have merged, agency brands have become less important as some marketers care more about what an agency can do for them than the cache of working with a particular agency brand.
Pressure on holding companies to drive efficiencies in a more difficult economic environment, has had some holding companies look to combine shops to find savings with combined support functions, as previously reported by Digiday.
https://digiday.com/?p=553892
