Kelly Clark, chief executive officer of GroupM, is merging two of the company’s ad-buying agencies and investing in the expansion of Essence, a digital ad-buying agency. Photo: GroupMGroupM, the umbrella firm that houses WPP ’s WPPGY 0.14% ad-buying shops, is consolidating two of its global ad-buying agencies to help reduce costs and enable investment in areas that may provide more growth. “Agency services are highly commoditized,” and “most global media agencies are indistinguishable to most marketers,” said Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research Group. “Having a differentiated offering may help agencies stand out, but it takes more than positioning.”GroupM will be left with three global ad-buying firms: Mindshare, Mediacom and the newly combined entity. “They haven’t built a large base of global clients” the way other agencies such as Mediacom have over the years, he added.

Source: Wall Street Journal June 01, 2017 11:15 UTC