SapientNitro and Razorfish Australia lead the way as Publicis merges agencies globally
It’s been revealed the Australian operations of Publicis digital agencies SapientNitro and Razorfish have been used as a testbed for the global merger of the two brands, announced overnight in the US.
Publicis will merge the businesses under a single banner, SapientRazorfish, in coming months as the marketing communications business seeks to streamline its digital offer.
While the move was making headlines in the US and Europe, Sapient’s Australian CEO, Marcos Kurowski told Mumbrella that the Australian agencies have been operating as a single business unit for some time, with Publicis global leaders monitoring the operation to see how it was working.
He said while the two brands were seen as separate and still handled clients separately, they operated out of the same premises and had brought many backroom operations together.
“We have been on the journey for some time now and are a couple of steps ahead of the US,” Kurowski said.
Kurowski: “China and Australia have been at the forefront, so now that accelerates across the world”
“Our teams are all co-located and fully integrated.
“At a global level there has been some interest in how things pan out, but at a US level it is on a completely different scale.
“The other place in APAC it has happened is in China – so China and Australia have been at the forefront, so now that accelerates across the world.”
Although the two agencies have already accomplished much of what is now being put into place in the US, Kurowski said with client relationships still separately defined under brand lines, there was still no decision as to how and when the rebranding would take place in Australia.
Publicis said the merger was a response to the changing needs of clients and helped accelerate the business to further focus on digital, with plans to source 60% of revenue from digital operations by 2018.
Officially the rebrand takes place on January 2.
Great the way they present this reaction to failure as positive. They must be in PR too.
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Publicis seem to continually get their digital strategy wrong. Too many acquisitions poorly considered.
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