We Are Social and The Narrative Group Are Merging

We Are Social and The Narrative Group (TNG) have entered into a merger agreement, joining forces to bolster each agency’s social and culture practices. The merger will introduce We Are Social as the lead brand in the U.S. and will be overseen by TNG’s current president Rebecca Coleman in her new role as CEO of We Are Social U.S. The Narrative Group and We Are Social will keep their respective names and The Narrative Group will continue to own earned-led specialty offerings across public relations, experiential marketing and talent services. In explaining the merger, the two agencies saw similarities in their operations and also saw ways to enhance what each of the other agency could do in the marketplace. “We noticed that we were playing in some of the same areas. And some of the work that we saw [TNG] delivering looked like it could have been We Are Social work and vice versa, and that started the conversation,” Nathan McDonald, co-founder and group CEO of We Are Social, told Adweek. We Are Social’s Amsterdam Office Opens With Crocs a Founding Client “We were getting some of the same RFPs and it seemed kind of crazy to be competing against each other when we were in the same network,” added Coleman. On the flip side, McDonald stated that We Are Social had long admired The Narrative Group’s combination of planning and culture with earned and experiential, as well as the fame-building the agency does for its clients, like McDonald's. “That was always something that we aspired to have—that scale and success as well in the U.S. market,” said McDonald. Where there is crossover between the agencies, and when there are socially-led campaigns, the work will be under the We Are Social brand. The Narrative Group will continue to concentrate on experiential, PR capabilities, talent and influencer marketing and helping scale the We Are Social business in the U.S. A blended team Coleman and McDonald said that the merger isn't a consolidation and nobody is losing their job. It’s more about bringing together like-minded businesses and being able to have more resources for both teams. The Narrative Group previously had a bigger presence in Los Angeles, and We Are Social was bigger in New York, but with the merger, the roughly 100 people that make up both agencies are more evenly divided between the two offices. Having both coasts covered means three more hours in the day of work for clients, according to Coleman. The two agencies are part of the Plus Company network, which also recently oversaw a merger between two of its creative agencies, Mekanism and Eleven. “They had a similar situation where they were both working creative and it seemed to make sense for them to combine. And then we started thinking about the same thing. We love that Plus Company is about collaboration over competition,” said Coleman, who added that the newly merged We Are Social/The Narrative Group will also collaborate with other Plus Company agencies when it makes sense. “The merger reflects the strength of the Plus Company network of agencies and its commitment to growth and collaboration not competition,” said Plus Company CEO Brett Marchand in a statement. “Together, this team of over a hundred brilliant, creative and trend-setting professionals will bring new ideas and thinking to the table for their clients.” The merger will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. “We Are Social is bringing years of strategy and tapping into trends to the table and we're bringing years of really great earned and experiential to the table. And that combination is really differentiated in the market,” concluded Coleman.