British ad giant WPP shook up the industry this week when it announced it is merging its creative agency J. Walter Thompson (JWT) with its direct-marketing arm Wunderman to become a new agency known as Wunderman Thompson. Going forward, Wunderman Thompson will be known as a creative, data, and technology agency.
And this newly formed agency will be led by Global Chief Executive Officer Mel Edwards — who is the Global CEO of Wunderman. And Tamara Ingram, CEO of J. Walter Thompson, will become Chairman of the new agency.
“Wunderman Thompson is a formidable combination, bringing together the capabilities our clients are demanding—creativity alongside deep expertise in technology, data, and commerce—in a single organization,” said WPP CEO Mark Read in an announcement. “It’s great news for our clients that we can combine the best of JWT and Wunderman in a single agency, and it’s great news for WPP as it allows us to compete more effectively in the sectors with the most significant opportunities for future growth.”
Photo: Wunderman Global CEO Mel Edwards (left) will be CEO of the new and J. Walter Thompson CEO Tamara Ingram (right), will become Chairman / Credit: WPP
One of the biggest reasons why this merger is happening is so that the combined agency can make data-driven decisions for its creative projects. As a result, the new agency will be positioned as a provider of end-to-end solutions through creative, data, consulting, and technology services on a global scale.
“To achieve transformative outcomes, clients today need inspiration that is rooted in data-driven insight,” added Edwards. “Wunderman Thompson offers precisely what clients want: brilliant creativity, expertise in data and sophisticated technology skills.”
The two groups share many core clients who will now have simpler access to both. Plus Wunderman Thompson will be able to capitalize on close and long-standing partnerships with companies like Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and SAP.
Over the last few months, Wunderman acquired marketing technology companies Emark and 2Sales. Emark is a Dutch marketing technology performance company that delivers Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, DMP, Facebook Advertising, and Google Ads in a single integrated solution. And Luxembourg-based 2Sales helps brands manage and optimize content generation, promotions, and sales across eight Amazon platforms.
JWT is about 155 years old and is known as the first ad agency in America. JWT was also the first agency to make a TV commercial. Originally founded as Carlton & Smith in 1864, the company was renamed to J. Walter Thompson after James Walter Thompson bought Carlton twelve years later. Then WPP acquired J. Walter Thompson in a hostile bid for $566 million back in 1987.
Back in September, WPP also merged ad agency Y&R with digital agency VML to launch a new agency called VMLY&R. This combined agency is headed up by VML’s Jon Cook. And David Sable, the CEO of Y&R, became non-executive chairman of VMLY&R.
Interestingly, Forrester published an industry report back in August suggesting that WPP should consider dissolving its agency brands in order to simplify the needs of CMOs and to streamline businesses due to volatility in the advertising industry. At the time of the report, WPP had 100 creative agencies across seven networks including AKQA, Grey, JWT, Ogilvy, VML, Wunderman, and Y&R. Now these networks have been consolidated to five, according to Fast Company.
Wunderman Thompson is expected to be up and running by early 2019. And the combined agencies will employ 20,000 people across 90 markets.
