Dentsu merges With Collective and Isobar
Dentsu Aegis Network’s With Collective and Isobar Australia have merged, seeing With Collective’s CEO and COO, Justin Hind and Dominique Hind respectively, exit the company.
Isobar CEO Erik Hallander will expand his remit to lead With Collective, which will rebrand to Isobar Australia as part of the deal.
With Collective’s Justin Hind and Dominique Hind
With Collective was founded in 2010 and acquired by DAN in 2016. It was formally linked to Isobar in 2017, to become part of the new ‘Isobar ANZ Group’ with Isobar, Accordant, Davanti, and SMG.
As part of the rebrand, Isobar’s Sydney and Canberra general manager, Thomas Tearle, will take on local management of the new team. The New Zealand post of With Collective, led by GM John Marshall, will remain untouched.
“Justin and Dom have built an amazing business – one we have long collaborated with, and admired the creative people and work that has led to its reputation in market,” said Hallander, who was appointed to the CEO of Isobar role in August after Konrad Spilva stepped down earlier this year.
“Bringing our businesses together continues to add scale and breadth to our offering. It will unite and optimise our complementary capabilities, and untap even greater opportunity for our clients and partners.”
Hallander became CEO of Isobar in August
CEO and co-founder of With, Justin Hind, said it was a “logical next step” to take the Isobar name and bow out.
“Taking the Isobar name has always been part of our plan and untaps even greater opportunity for our clients and partners,” he said.
“Dominique and I started the business over nine years ago. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved; we’ve worked with wonderful clients, on some amazing brands and we’ve helped start, foster and develop some great people’s careers. Our personal chapter with the business now closes and a new exciting one opens for the combined business.
“We have absolute faith in Erik to lead the business onwards and upwards with ambition and integrity, and I’d like to thank the WiTH Collective team past and present for getting us to such a pivotal point so far.”
It’s the latest move in the restructure DAN’s ANZ CEO, Henry Tajer, is prioritising. That restructure has included a number of key hires and staff movements, including the appointment of Hallander.
“We are very excited about these two fantastic companies becoming one and see great benefits to our clients as a result of this change,” Tajer said.
“The combined capabilities will enable clients to fully leverage the power of creativity, digital transformation and a business growth mindset that sits at the core of the Isobar business and team.”
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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I feel very sorry for all the WiTH staff who have been left in the lurch for the last 6 months, weekly/monthly meetings cancelled & no business updates. Poor form from the owners despite the pay-out legal battles they were fighting.
So much for a family based values agency….
Good luck to those left.
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Justin & Dom built something great in WiTH.
It’s a positive sign that it was only 2 months over the magic 3 year mark since acquisition, as hopefully it means they will regain energy to build another great indie offering.
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Isobar is now just a collection of failed, albeit once great, agencies.
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perfect result for Dom and Justin…they get their money but escape early from Japanese rule
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And that ladies and gentleman is the way to do it.
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Everyone quoted talked about the great benefit to clients. Since when is ‘The P&L’ a client?
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I’m getting a sense of failure from Dentsu generally.
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the management culture just doesn’t translate particularly well into our market and values. It’s too ‘command and control’ for people and organisations to flourish and the result is burned out, dis-empowered and under motivated leaders and managers
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The real story is since the change in ownership WiTH has failed , both founders leaving , the name shuttered and the business closed. Will be interesting to compare a WiTH client list from 12 months ago to an Isobar one in 12 months time.
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You obviously have no idea about how a business works. Until everything is signed, everyone’s hands are tied on communicating anything. DAN has done this to multiple agencies recently. Ruined their reputations by ridiculous amounts of red tape. [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
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BOK BOK HENRY
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and marks the end of WiTH… what there was left. the owners had tuned out long ago but hung on for the cash, cant say any of us blame them.
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correct to say Isobar has been responsible for a string of failures globally. Glue London, FarFar Sweden were two notable ones.
locally with Visual Jazz, Soap Creative and now With gone, you have to wonder how Little Giant and Amicus are doing!
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Sure if it’s the Manson Family. Dentsu have a back-ended 4 year earn out and pride themselves on the owners of any buisness they buy staying on and moving within the network. Sooo, I don’t think the champagne will be popping at Watsons Bay, but definitely at the Dentsu office.
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So sad how the multinationals can ruin great local brands. With Collective were on fire, as were Match Media when Publicis bought them…
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Clearly you have no understanding of how multinationals treat the independent agencies they acquire. The DAN With joined is not the DAN in market now under HT. Of course, if I was him I’d want to get the man who turned my role down out of the business too.
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Anyone who’s worked at this agency knew how toxic it was – the best thing for that place now is to disappear into ambiguity and for all employees to take comfort in the fact they’ll be under new leadership soon and the name WiTH Collective will be no more.
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Got nothing to do with translation. DAN is no better than wpp and Publicis in that respect. I’ve been in wpp for 5 years and it’s the same shit here as it is there. Command and control is the idea behind a network.
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Turned down his HT’s role? Sure you did mate, sure you did.
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Such a bad, bad place to work!
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Working at this place messed with my mental health beyond measure. Glad to see it gone.
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Surely whenever the words ‘isobar’ and ‘creative’ appear in the same sentence a Salaryman dies from laughter.
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