WPP continues to streamline with two ad agency mergers
WPP has continued to consolidate its global brands with two fresh ad agency mergers. E-commerce specialist Salmon has been placed under the Wunderman brand, where it will work as a standalone brand of new division Wunderman Commerce. Meanwhile, healthcare communications agencies greyhealth group and Sudler & Hennessy are being merged in the Australia-New Zealand region to create Sudler Sydney.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, June 26, 2017

WPP continues to consolidate brands throughout its agency empire.

The holding company has confirmed that it is placing the e-commerce specialist Salmon, which it acquired in 2013, under the Wunderman fold. Separately it’s merging two healthcare communications agencies — greyhealth group (ghg) and ‎Sudler & Hennessey — in the Australia-New Zealand region.

Wunderman is launching a new division called Wunderman Commerce, to which Salmon will contribute. Salmon will continue to operate as a stand-alone brand within Wunderman, working with both Wunderman and other WPP companies. Salmon has operations in London, Amsterdam, New York, Seattle, New Delhi, Beijing and Melbourne.

According to the holding company, the addition of Salmon will enhance Wunderman’s offering to include enterprise-level retail and mobile commerce capabilities. Salmon’s expertise includes delivering strategy, platform integration and customer experience solutions across platforms including IBM Watson Commerce, SAP Hybris, Intershop and Magento.

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Salmon in turn will gain access to Wunderman’s clients, global scale, CRM capabilities and offshore marketing automation centers.

The new merged entity in the AUNZ region will be known as Sudler Sydney, and it’s designed to create one bigger agency with broader capabilities across the healthcare communications sector.



WPP AUNZ CEO Mike Connaghan stated: “We are constantly looking to optimize our portfolio of companies and offer clients the strongest possible solution. Merging these two strong healthcare specialists is a natural evolution, creating scale and more opportunities for our people and clients alike.”



Operating under the WPP Health & Wellness AUNZ division, Sudler Sydney will be led by Peter Bernard, formerly ‎Sudler & Hennessey managing director. The merger affects the Australian arm of each agency, but not the global ghg or Sudler & Hennessey brands.

These are just the latest moves WPP has taken to streamline operations within some of its agency groups.

Last month Mindshare absorbed Ogilvy’s Neo unit which became part of a Performance Group at the media agency, part of GroupM. In late May GroupM folded Maxus, its smallest traditional media agency into the larger MEC.