Interpublic Group’s media unit IPG Mediabrands is merging its m2 and Initiative units in a move it says will allow it to better leverage its global network while providing staff with greater access to global resources. The realignment is effective Jan. 4.
Harvey Carroll, Canadian CEO for IPG Mediabrands, said the company has been working towards a realignment of its network brands “for some time,” with discussions beginning in earnest earlier in the year.
The recent acquisition of Canadian independent Media Experts (which received Competition Bureau approval earlier in the month) now enables IPG to offer two global brands complemented by a strong local offering, said Carroll.
The challenges of bringing the two networks together are more logistical in nature, said Carroll, stressing there will be no disruption of existing client relationships. “It’s been a smooth process,” said Carroll. “Our hope was to have everything locked and loaded before people head off for the holidays, so we could hit the ground running with the new structure in January, and we’ve gotten there.”
M2 had primarily focused on Canadian clients (its roster includes Dairy Farmers of Canada, RBC, CBC and GM Canada), which Carroll said was partly a function of not being able to participate in global RFPs due to the fact it had no global affiliation.
Initiative, meanwhile, is “a very modest sized” agency in Canada, said Carroll. “Now that we’ve aligned the two, we will have the size and critical mass not only to serve Canadian clients, but also take advantage of some of the opportunities we are increasingly seeing: Global clients looking for global solutions.”
M2’s billings grew from C$396 million in 2013 to C$440 million last year, according to Paris-based research firm RECMA, while Initiative’s billings dropped slightly, from $102 million to $95 million.
Based on those numbers, the new Initiative entity would be the seventh largest network in Canada, neck-and-neck with its sister agency UM (which had billings of $555 last year, but has been on what Carroll described as a “great roll” in 2015).
“The brands are moving in a positive direction,” said Carroll. “This is really about having three strong brands, and finding which places to play. It’s not about cost-reduction or client departures, it’s setting ourselves up to accelerate our growth.”
As a result of the merger, M2 president Leeanne Comish, who took over the role in 2012, is leaving the company to return to client-side work. “Leanne has been instrumental in us figuring all this out, and as we progressed through that she informed me that she’s interested in going back to her roots,” said Carroll. “She was very committed to making sure that this alignment happened, that her team was in a great place.”
Current Initiative president Adam Luck is moving into a newly created role as head of digital growth and innovation with IPG Mediabrands, where he will oversee the Reprise Media network and oversee the launch of a new service offering in the digital space.
The company is actively seeking a replacement for Comish, with Carroll stating it hopes to have someone in place early in 2016. The company has what Carroll described as a “tight list” of potential candidates.
IPG is also searching for a new VP of strategy for the new unit, which currently employs about 108 people.
Initiative’s account wins this year include the Tourism Niagara Partnership, Henkell Trocken and Keyspire, as well as a small project for Air New Zealand. In the U.S., it won the Papa Johns Pizza and Safeway supermarkets accounts.
The move represents something of a return to its roots for m2, which launched in Canada by Hugh Dow as Initiative Media in 1989 before adopting its current name.
“There has been some evolution and iterations, and part of the benefit of doing this is that we will clean things up bit,” said Carroll. “The beauty is that there’s great history and heritage in Initiative, having been one of the first big players in the market, but so much has happened since then that it will be helpful to clarify what’s what.”
Initiative was founded as Initiative Media in Paris in 1975, extending into the Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions in 1996 before being merged with what was then North America’s largest independent media agency Western Media that year. It became simply Initiative in 2003.
Media Experts has now been fully integrated into IPG Mediabrands, with Carroll saying senior leadership teams are already meeting.
“There’s plenty of opportunities, and we want to identify what areas we want to start working on first to make sure we take advantage of the combined entity,” he said. “What’s become very clear to me is that we share a similar culture and entrepreneurial mindset. The people are fitting together very well, so now there’s just the heavy lifting of figuring out how we make the best of each other.”
