IPG Mediabrands Consolidates Tech Shops Reprise and Matterkind Into the Kinesso Brand

Last week, IPG Mediabrands became the latest holding company group to merge subsidiaries. In a move to reduce redundancies, improve workflows and better support its three media agencies, UM, Initiative and Mediahub, Mediabrands announced the dissolution of the Matterkind and Reprise brands, folding them into Kinesso. Before now, the Kinesso, Reprise and Matterkind brands each had their own P&L. Reprise focused on search, social and SEO; Matterkind managed programmatic, affiliate and performance-based marketing; Kinesso worked on data and technology initiatives. Each Mediabrands agency could tap any, or all, of the three for help executing on data or technology-heavy work. Three competing, but similar, business units caused workflow redundancies. Since there wasn't a single technology solution in place, each media agency's technology and digital solutions and workflows could vary. After Clashing Over Marketing for Eons, Here’s How CMOs and Franchisees Can Finally Get Aligned Mediabrands leaders hope creating a centralized technology layer under a single brand name solves those problems. Now, all three media agencies and their clients benefit from Mediabrands' group-level technology. "We really want to create a simple structure that is unified against a single way of working at a single P&L. That's in service of our clients, rather than having multiple competing sets of interests," Kinesso global CEO Jarrod Martin told Adweek. Tightening up Mediabrands It's been a change-heavy year for Mediabrands, as its leaders began simplifying the group's structure. Mediahub joined the group in February. Previously, it operated separately from its sister media agencies as part of IPG's MullenLowe Group. Bringing Mediahub into the Mediabrands structure made the group better resemble other holding companies. Even after grouping the three media agencies together, there were still three technology-focused business units within Mediabrands. "No matter how coordinated and connected you are, when you have discrete business units with discrete P&Ls, there is always room for seams [to develop] when it comes to a shared orientation toward the marketplace," said Eileen Kiernan, global president of IPG Mediabrands. Leaders decided to streamline the infrastructure. They hope fewer brands will make it easier for marketers to understand Mediabrands' technology offering, and for agencies to get on the same page about how best to use it. Packing Mediabrands' technology and data services inside Kinesso underpins all three media agencies with baseline digital and technological capabilities. This, the leaders believe, will create a more consistent experience for clients. It won't matter if a client works with UM, Initiative or Mediahub, because now each of those agencies offer the same digital and performance expertise. "Bringing those three pieces together gives us an integrated performance business—the unit that services the lead agencies of UM, Initiative and Mediahub, but is connected to the data intake layer," Martin said. As other holding companies like Dentsu are folding agency brands into single business units like Dentsu Creative, IPG Mediabrands still wants each of its agencies differentiated. When Adweek asked if using the same technology will make agency offerings too similar, Martin said the decision simplifies complex processes like data analysis. "We want to clean all of that [complexity] out of that system so that everything that can and should be common to each agency is, and everything that shouldn't be common and is unique, is unique," he said. Global Media Agency of the Year Initiative Masters Fame and Flow Similarities to other holding company structures Over the past few years, IPG's holding company competitors leaned on similar strategies to draw more value out of their existing data and technology subsidiaries. In April 2021, WPP formed data company Choreograph by tapping experts inside Wunderman Thompson and GroupM. Then last May, it launched the GroupM Nexus digital media business unit that activates media on behalf of GroupM agencies. GroupM Nexus employees aren't client-facing. Rather, they regard GroupM media agencies as their clients, GroupM Nexus CEO Nicolas Bidon said at the time of the announcement. Last week, Mediabrands leaders told Adweek the same thing. Before the consolidation, the three business units worked directly with some clients, which they'll continue to service. The data layer will remain bespoke, supporting the three media agencies Mediabrands prefers remain front and center. "The Kinesso move is kind of IPG playing fast follower to what some of the other holding companies have done with their tech layer and their tech strategy," Jay Pattisall, principal analyst at Forrester Research, told Adweek. Consolidation like this is commonplace for holding companies with sprawling business investments. Until recently, restructuring predominantly affected agency brands and employees. More recently, though, changes reach the technology businesses that support those agencies. Shifting media mixes explain why. To serve media across more digital platforms and channels like retail media, marketers look to digital activation specialists. So, specialty shops with expertise in practices like performance media are a threat to the holding companies. Despite their historical expertise in traditional media, holding companies position themselves as one-stop shops for clients wanting to avoid juggling relationships with several agency partners. By offering their media agencies access to a bespoke team of digital specialists sitting within Kinesso, Choreograph, GroupM Nexus or Omnicom's Annalect, holding companies can regain an edge on smaller expert-run shops. How will Kinesso support the media agencies? Each media agency benefits from access to Kinesso's digital and performance media experts. The agencies can outsource things like data analysis, performance media activation or development needs to Kinesso, and spend more time thinking strategically. Inside Recent Changes at WPP’s GroupM: What the EssenceMediacom Merger Means The new workflow will mean media agency employees can "focus less on mundane tasks that might be draining on a day-to-day basis, and be focused more on value-added tasks that empower them," Martin said. Mediabrands leaders hope the single technology layer they've created makes it easier for media agency employees and their clients to make better use of resources that used to exist in silos. "More brainpower and less brawn power, if you will, involved in our entire workflow is a benefit. We expect our people and our clients to experience the benefits of that as well," said Kiernan.