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Has AI brought the agency world full circle? WPP-backed The&Partnership seems to think so. The agency is merging with its media buying and planning counterpart, mSix&Partners, to create a “fully-integrated agency with AI at its core” under the new global brand T&Pm.
T&Pm now employs 1,900 people across four continents, operating in 45 offices worldwide, with reported billings exceeding $1.25 billion. Its largest client, Toyota, is handled on a full-service basis across Europe. mSix manages media clients such as EA, easyJet, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger.
The founder and CEO commented, “In retrospect, I’m unsure who first thought it was a good idea to separate creative and media agencies, but it likely had more to do with profit than with clients’ needs. If that separation ever made sense, it certainly doesn’t today. Modern brands require integrated strategies, where brilliant creative thinking is inseparable from the intelligent media systems that bring it to life, all of which can now be personalized on a large scale thanks to AI breakthroughs.
“AI’s capabilities have reached a pivotal point for our industry, but they can only be fully realized through a more holistic approach. By combining our unique model with WPP’s $315 million annual AI investment, T&Pm is well-positioned to help our clients capitalize on this opportunity.”
T&Pm, as it is now known, remains majority-owned by WPP, though it operates independently. The CEO was adept at maintaining autonomy during WPP’s previous leadership.
T&Pm aims to serve as WPP’s ‘AI speedboat,’ though it stops short of calling WPP itself an ocean liner. It will be interesting to see if any of WPP’s other creative agencies, such as VML, Ogilvy, or AKQA, will follow this integrated approach. Ogilvy might be a likely candidate, as it once had its own media division called Nexus.