PUBLICIS GROUPE MERGES TWO CREATIVE NETWORKS TO CREATE ONE NAMED "LEO"

The article originally appeared on PR Week here.

Publicis Groupe said on Tuesday morning that it is combining its Publicis Worldwide creative agency network with Leo Burnett to create a new global brand, Leo.

A statement announcing the change emphasized that the merger is not about efficiency, a common rationale behind agency mergers in recent years, and is instead a response to the evolving needs of the market and a desire to elevate the creative product overall.

“I have never believed that creative efficiency should mean fewer brands and fewer operations,” said Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis Groupe, in a release. “It is about big ideas from creative minds that are nurtured by a strong agency culture, to have an impact on our clients’ business. In today’s world, it is also about more collaboration and more access to capabilities.”

“This is not an efficiency play,” added Carla Serrano, global chief strategy officer of Publicis Groupe, in an interview with Campaign UK. “It’s about exponential creativity—bringing together human ingenuity and the potential of AI to tackle today’s complex business challenges.” (Campaign is PRWeek's sister business media outlet at Haymarket Media).

While the new network, which Publicis is describing as a “constellation," will include 15,000 employees in 90 countries, Canada is one of the few markets, along with Paris and London, where Publicis’ creative agency will remain in the market. Leo Bunett will rebrand as Leo, and Publicis will become part of the larger Leo network, but continue to operate as Publicis in Canada.

Aside from conflict challenges -- Leo Burnett works on Bell, while Publicis has Rogers, for example -- the decision to treat Canada differently from other markets reflects the strength of the two agency brands, each with a different offering, said Andrew Bruce, CEO of Publicis Groupe Canada, who will also become chair of Leo North America.

Leo Burnett, with about 165 employees, has always been known as a creative focused agency able to match up against the country’s top indies, while Publicis, especially in recent years, has grown into a “modern marketing machine” with creative at its heart but supplemented by CRM, production, big data, innovative tools and nearly 1,000 employees.

“They're very different culturally and it just made sense that we keep these two distinct,” said Bruce.

“Arthur’s obsession was that everything we do has to be beneficial to our clients,” he added.

“[W]hen we have two strong brands in [Canada], why would we put them together and create issues, when the intention is to create benefit.”

In the U.S., Leo Burnett is based, and has most of its employees, in Chicago, while Publicis Worldgroup is based in the traditional advertising epicentre of New York. That office will be rebranded as Leo, but otherwise there will be no layoffs as the New York and Chicago offices work together and tap into the global network.

Globally, the new Leo will be co-led by Marco Venturelli and Agathe Bousquet, who successfully led Publicis Conseil to the Cannes Lions 2024 Agency of the Year award. The pair of co-presidents will oversee the new network’s creative output, and will work alongside chief strategy officer Gareth Goodall, while Bruce will oversee Leo North America.

At a regional level, the HR, finance and IT functions have been operating on shared systems, reflecting the company’s Power of One model. The transition aims to maintain the structure without disrupting existing teams. The new network features a redesigned logo that represents the union, merging the iconic Leo Burnett name with the Publicis Groupe's lion emblem.

MSL is Publicis Groupe's primary PR network.

The change is not a reaction to what other agency holding companies, most recently Omnicom and IPG, have been doing, said Bruce, but is part of a strategy that Sadoun has been implementing over a number of years, during which the holding company has surged to No. 1 in the world.

“Arthur has done some very brave things, which have proven to be exactly what our clients needed as time went on,” said Bruce, pointing to the roll-out of Marcel, which led to the contentious decision to skip Cannes in 2018, and the bold commitment to expand its data services and offerings.

Bringing Leo Burnett and Publicis together creates a new global giant and signals that creativity remains at the core of Publicis Groupe.

“We always have to be pushing for better. And so when you look at your global creative footprint, we have beautiful creative agencies all over the world. But if we're trying to stitch together and really assemble a creative brand that can solve a client's global needs, we felt that we were stronger, and we put ourselves in a better place with this coming together,” said Bruce.

The industry has seen other such “coming togethers” in recent years, with storied agency brands like JWT and Y&R disappearing, even as critics have asked how businesses that claim to value and protect their clients’ brands can have such little regard for their own.

Omnicom Group is also in the process of acquiring rival IPG. Interpublic's PR firms include The Weber Shandwick Collective and Golin, while FleishmanHillard, Ketchum, Porter Novelli and other firms are a part of Omnicom PR Group.

But Bruce does not believe either brand is going away. Publicis will live on at the very top of the holding company, and the legacy of the Leo Burnett (the man) lives on in the new brand

“It's a way for us to pay total respect to our brands and to manage that portfolio, as opposed to merge and kill…in a way that creates a lot more clarity, and really puts together a powerful global creative brand built on the back of Leo Burnett,” said Bruce. “We believe so much in that brand, we’re putting the name on more and more and more doors.”