Now we’re talking.
This follows Mark Read’s WPP template: merge the also-rans while protecting the crown jewels.
DDB and TBWA become one entity because, honestly, can anyone outside the industry tell them apart anymore?
FCB absorbs MullenLowe in a “merger of equals” that everyone knows isn’t.
The Martin Agency? Deutsch? They become “centers of excellence” within the bigger networks, which is corporate speak for “your P&L now rolls up to someone else, don’t buy that new apartment”.
This is where the real savings emerge. One finance team, one HR department, one very nervous workforce wondering if they’ll survive integration.
It’s brutal efficiency wrapped in a strategic narrative that the market will buy. And that old chestnut about client conflicts is no longer a strong enough excuse for multiplicity.
The smart money bets this is the outcome because it’s been beta-tested and board-approved.
WPP already proved you can merge Wunderman Thompson with VMLY&R with no significant repercussions. The DDB-TBWA merger also makes brutal sense. Both are creatively respected, but commercially challenged, stronger together than dying separately.
FCB-MullenLowe is even more obvious.
Four creative pillars gives the new company enough brands to manage conflicts while delivering savings through back-office consolidation.
The killer app here is that it follows an established playbook. Private equity firms love “proven models,” and John Wren is essentially running a PE play here. The risk mitigation is perfect: radical enough to deliver synergies, conservative enough to avoid client revolt. It’s the Goldilocks strategy, which in corporate America means it’s almost certainly what will happen.
The only question is whether it’s radical enough for the future? In 2024 this would have been a dead cert. But WPP is not prospering, and the world of advertising only gets tougher and more disrupted as you read this.
Option 3: The Nuclear Alternative
This is John Wren going full Thanos.
Two creative brands. That’s it.
BBDO McCann becomes the premium offering, the Mercedes-Benz of advertising. DDB FCB becomes the challenger brand. Tesla, if you will.
TBWA’s brand equity? Who cares? MullenLowe’s heritage? Irrelevant. The Martin Agency’s independence? A luxury they can’t afford.
But here’s the genius bit: they create a single platform entity – Omni Cloud – that handles all media, all data, all digital, all commerce. One P&L. One system. One throat to choke. It’s Publicis’s Power of One on steroids. Clients get simplicity. Shareholders get margins north of 20%. And the industry gets what it probably needs more than anything: a reality check that the era of brand proliferation is over.
