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WPP, the London-based advertising group, has returned to the acquisition trail in the UK with the purchase of one of the country’s leading independent creative ad agencies.
New Commercial Arts was founded in 2020 by a team led by industry veterans James Murphy and David Golding, who sold their previous agency adam&eve to DDB in 2012.
Mark Read, chief executive of WPP, said the deal showed that even with the advances in artificial intelligence — which is increasingly used to replace some of the more traditional roles in the industry — advertising required creative talent.
“Even where we are in a world of AI, we still need world-class creative ideas,” he told the Financial Times. “We are investing in our core creative offer. We have been quite quiet on the acquisition front.”
WPP last week won the mandate to provide media services to Amazon, one of the world’s biggest marketers, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. Shares rose about 5 per cent on the news.
The group will bring NCA into Ogilvy, its creative advertising arm, adding close to 100 staff in London and Scotland as well as large client contracts such as J Sainsbury in the UK. Other NCA clients include Vodafone, Peugeot, Paramount+ and Uber.
Murphy will become the chief executive of Ogilvy Group UK, which will retain the NCA name and team. Fiona Gordon has been promoted to global chief executive of advertising at Ogilvy.
WPP declined to comment on the value of the deal.
Read described NCA as “one of the UK’s most exciting new agencies with a great team, an impressive roster of clients and a track record of elevating beloved British brands”.
WPP’s last significant acquisition in the UK was more than a year ago, with the purchase of influencer marketing agency Goat, and it has since embarked on a rationalisation and restructuring of its network that has resulted in a streamlined organisation and fewer divisions.
Last month, the group sold its controlling stake in public relations group FGS Global to private equity partner KKR for $767mn in cash.
Murphy, who began his career as a graduate trainee with Ogilvy, is a well-known UK advertising executive as founder of adam&eve, which was feted for its work for retailer John Lewis.
The deal reflects the polarisation of the advertising agency world between smaller groups that can specialise in certain sectors or creative niches, and the larger networks that are investing hundreds of millions in new AI technology that promises to revolutionise how the industry works.
Murphy told the FT that it was increasingly tough for mid-sized advertising companies that lacked the scale to invest in capabilities such as AI.
“The truth is that as New Commercial Arts, we’re never going to be able to lead the thinking and the innovation on [AI]. Whereas plugged into WPP, we can be part of a group that are and there are obviously benefits in terms of the quality of the work that we’ll do.”
He added: “In our industry, there are two really good things to be: one is small, the other is big, and that’s become much more pronounced with the impact that technology and data is having on the industry.”
