Nobody Wanted This.
The only newsletter that wants to stop making agency holding companies a thing.
Dear marketing fans and everyone still on the org chart.
Who invented mega agency mergers anyway? Was it some sort of weird 1987 prophecy that foretold: “One day, a single brave holding company shall own all the world’s creative departments, every deck shall require 39 approvals and no one shall even remember who the client is.”
Like anything about corporate business I have to start with Teddy K in the seminal 2004 film, In Good Company.
Trust me, you should be thanking me for this, because my first draft was about making the holdco agency environment a parable for “MomTok” from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I really wanted to say the equivalent of “can advertising (aka MomTok) survive another mega merger no one asked for”?
To mix metaphors up like a blender and scramble everything up, I quote Joe Fox from You’ve Got Mail. That’s right. F.O.X. Can you use one movie to reference another like this? Let’s find out.
“In Good Company is the I Ching. In Good Company is the sum of all wisdom. In Good Company is the answer to any question. What’s our integration strategy? [Makes synergy hand gesture] Will DDB survive? ‘Krispity Krunch’. What should I tell my team about the restructuring? ‘I’m psyched!’” Nailed it.
Let me try to bring this rambling intro in for a landing. In Good Company is an almost forgettable but classic film about a soulless conglomerate (The absolutely perfectly named “Globecom”). The company is swallowing another company and a 26-year-old suit (Carter Duryea, played by Topher Grace) spouting a litany of empty corporate buzzwords while they gut the place.
It’s the Rosetta Stone for agency merger discourse.and Omnicom and IPG finally completing their merger. The new mega agency’s first move? Retire some of it’s massive and iconic agency brands: DDB, FCB and MullenLowe. Or maybe it was the 4,000 layoffs. Or the downgrade in benefits for IPG staff. An agency without a Christmas break? What are we even doing anymore?
I’m certainly under no illusions that ad agencies can or will (or maybe even should) last forever. I’m not even sure if that’s possible or desirable. Now, there will be the same number of people that weep for them and their creative legacies, as there are for the days of Pizza Hut’s famous pizza bar and retro “hut aesthetic”.
Only a mega ad agency would even dare call itself something as ridiculous as Omnicom and praise the operational efficiencies as something clients are actually clamouring for. And while talking about its track record they sum up the new company as, “The world’s leading marketing and sales company. Built for intelligent growth in the next era.” That will surely rally the clients!
What’s interesting is that while Omnicom was literally eating IPG and picking old agencies out of its teeth, Publicis celebrated its 100th birthday with an AI-powered film. All while positioning itself as a more human mega agency. Can you take a holdco serious that boils down 100 years of history into six events: Radio ads, Nazis, A Fire, Computers, Covid and AI. I feel like I need to open a betting market on if it reaches 200 years.
Yes, but. Now these two agencies represent 80% of the industry market cap. So a sea of giant holding company agencies have been gobbled up and leaving smaller players in that 20% to walk the earth waiting for their shot to be sucked up by the bigger ones.
I will always remember a poster like this when I worked at Cossette showing the wonderful map of holding companies of the advertising world. It was such a ridiculous thing. A map of agencies and who owned other agencies. Now there’s less holdcos and even less agencies and it seems somehow, even more ridiculous in the world of AI.
It reminds me of Monty Python’s famous The Crimson Permanent Assurance bit from the Meaning of Life. I want to see ad agencies like this battling it out for the scraps of client briefs.
In that story (Don’t sleep on part 2). Creative institutions with legendary names, names that once meant something, watch as the mega corporate behemoth devours them whole in the name of “operational efficiency.”
Armed only with their portfolios and LinkedIn Premium accounts, 4,000 souls are cast into the void while executives make insane hand gestures about synergy. Meanwhile, a French lion prowls the perimeter, whispering about AI and resilience. Witness the audacious restructuring unfold across the high seas of Madison Avenue, where the only thing being integrated...is your severance package.
Like other mergers in the news (Netflix and Warner Bros or maybe it’s Paramount now), “We’re two streaming mergers away from a brand new concept— cable.”
Same thing here. We’re two mega holding company agency mergers away from a brand new concept— advertising.”
Meanwhile the people high up in the Omnicom offices seem more like Otto from the Netflix holiday film, Champagne Problems saying, “[sighs] Poor Mega Conglomerate Agency Holdcos. Deeply misunderstood.”
Yes, the holdcos are just like Hans Gruber in that other holiday movie.
In the wise words of John McClane, “Why’d you have to nuke the whole industry, Hans?“
Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
Today’s discussion topics are brought to you by whatever this ad for panettone is. Panettone is kind of the cilantro of holiday foods. There are people who love it and those that can’t stand it.
So Fanatics is doing a predictions marketing that really, seriously isn’t just gambling. For reals. There should be more ad related markets btw.
What’s better than a Christmas ad? Grumpy Harrison Ford in a kilt and Santa hat.
Every Warner Bros Logo ever. (Seems like a good time).
It wouldn’t be a Christmas without this ad
Kind of incredible that this one from 1989 is still so simple and fresh.
Ad History: Fruity Pebbles Christmas (1986)
I love that Barney Rubble would dress up like Santa just to get the Fruity Pebbles. Iconic.
Last call: Three Dots & A Dash.
Donn Beach invented this one during WWII while serving in the Army Air Forces. The name is Morse code for “V”—Victory. The garnish spells it out: three cherries (the dots), a pineapple wedge (the dash).
It was a drink made for wartime. For people watching the world rearrange itself and needing to believe, for a few sips at least, that things would turn out okay. If that doesn’t sound like us sprinting towards 2026 at agencies I’m not sure what does.
And like Omnicom and IPG. This one is two rums that didn’t ask to be in the same glass, forced to “make it work”. Spices. Honey. A little sweetness to cut the complete gong show. And that seemed appropriate this week.
Makeshift Three Dots and a Dash:
1½ oz aged rum (whatever you have)
½ oz dark rum
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz honey syrup (1:1 honey + warm water)
4-5 dashes Angostura bitters
Tiny pinch ground allspice (like, barely any)
Yes, the real deal uses some rhum agricole which gives it grassy funk you’ll probably not miss, but aged rum works just fine. It also uses falernum and allspice dram which is where that tiki magic lives. But the extra Angostura is going to get you 70% of the way there. And that seems good enough.
It’ll taste more like a fancy rum punch than a proper Three Dots, but honestly? After the week this industry just had, close enough counts. So make a batch and let Alan Thicke and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hit you up with some holiday magic of their own.
The Drink Cart is your weekly fuel for pop culture brains and ad junkies. A cocktail of ad insights and hot takes that feel like you’re hanging at your favourite dive bar after launching your latest campaign.
Yes, the Hershey’s Kiss Christmas ad. A classic! Never gets old. And I love that they still use it…