Before we received confirmation from agency sources this morning, The Wall Street Journal reported that MRY will indeed become part of the larger Starcom MediaVest Group.
This is just the latest change over at Publicis, which announced last week that Rosetta would fold into Razorfish before a spokesperson clarified that the two shops will remain separate under the shared name.
Apparently, the MRY/Starcom relationship will function in the same way: MRY will continue to operate independently but will fall under the invisible Starcom “umbrella.”
“People familiar with the matter” told the WSJ that it’s all about “[helping] the creative shop leverage SMG’s distribution capabilities”, that “several clients” will work only with MRY, and that there won’t be any subsequent layoffs.
The only staffing change mentioned: MRY founder/CEO Matt Britton will now report to Starcom CEO Laura Desmond and will presumably receive a new title as well.
We reached out to contacts at MRY for comment, but they have yet to respond.