WPP-backed The&Partnership has announced that it is now combining with its media buying and planning agency mSix&Partners to create a new fully integrated agency with AI at its heart, under the new global brand T&Pm.
As per the agency, while AI is transforming marketing communications, from the creation of content to its deployment and optimisation, the siloed nature of the marketing industry limits its adoption.
Hence, with the creation of T&Pm, the agency promises to ‘connect talent and tech to fuel brand growth’, combining capabilities across creative and media, experience and technology, to offer the kind of ‘genuinely end-to-end marketing solutions’ it has already built for the likes of Toyota and News Corp.
In its press note, T&Pm also mentioned that the move of uniting two already thriving agencies is the ‘next evolution’ in The&Partnership’s long-term strategy to provide clients with uniquely integrated, agnostic answers to their marketing challenges.
While The&Partnership is one of the world’s fastest growing creative networks with its revenues more than doubling over the last five years through innovative partnerships with major clients like Mars, Toyota, NatWest, TELUS and News Corp, mSix&Partners, a joint venture between The&Partnership and GroupM has established itself as one of WPP’s fastest growing media agencies, with deep expertise in performance-led solutions for clients including EA, easyJet, and PVH’s Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
With the creation of T&Pm, the newly rechristened entity will now build on this momentum, applying its independent Partner-led mindset to WPP’s market-leading AI platforms, to effectively become WPP’s AI ‘speedboat’, and accelerate growth across its entire roster of clients.
The new combined company will be operational from Monday, March 25, this year and will comprise 1,900 people, spanning four continents with 45 offices worldwide.
Commenting on the development, Johnny Hornby, Founder and CEO, The&Partnership, said, “Looking back, I’m not sure whose idea it was for our industry to separate creative and media agencies, but I’m sure the motives were more profit- than client-driven. If that separation ever made any sense, it certainly doesn’t today. Modern brands need to connect the dots, brilliant creative thinking can’t be divorced from the smart media systems that bring it to life, all of which can now be personalised at scale by breakthroughs in AI.”
“AI’s power really is at a pivot point for our industry but will only be harnessed by a much more holistic approach. Combining our unique model with WPP’s £250m annual AI investment, means T&Pm will be well placed to help our clients seize this opportunity,” he added.
