WPP’s New Global Brand Agency Combines 5 of Its Consultancies and Design Shops

WPP has made good on a promise it made in September to launch a next-generation global brand agency comprised of five of its consultancies and design shops by January.

Today, the holding company opened the doors of Superunion, which combines WPP’s Brand Union, The Partners, Lambie-Nairn, Addison Group and VBAT. The agency said in a statement it comes to market with a network of 750 employees stationed across 23 offices in 18 countries, client billings in excess of $100 million worldwide and a client roster that includes Diageo, FIFA, Ford, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Vodafone.

“The world needs creative solutions to stimulate growth in a way that traditional approaches alone cannot achieve, which is why we have formed Superunion,” said Jim Prior, global CEO at Superunion.

He added that “creativity has to be applied at the center of the business, where it can affect things like innovation, product and service, recruitment and retention, culture change, people’s experience of the brand, and the driving purpose of the organization.”

“We will offer more integrated services, high-level strategic relevancy and closer connections to audiences, building stronger brands that drive our clients’ success,” said Prior, who leads Superunion alongside executive chairman Simon Bolton.

“We want clients and their brands to build great, mutually beneficial relationships with their customers, various stakeholders and society at large,” Bolton said. “While it’s a big goal, we believe it gives them a much bigger chance of long-term success.”

The formation of Superunion comes on the heels of a disappointing 2017 for WPP during which it missed its projected first-half revenue and saw its stock plunge as a result. After that, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell was pressured to come up with a reorganization plan for the company, which would include reducing operating costs and increasing efficiency.

“The pressures that we’re seeing accelerate the need to simplify what we’ve got,” Sorrell said at the time.

WPP also combined MEC and Maxus to form Wavemaker last year, a new global media network under GroupM.

Lindsay Rittenhouse

@kitten_mouse

Lindsay Rittenhouse is a staff writer at Adweek, where she specializes in covering the world of agencies and their clients.