Two of GroupM’s media agencies in Dublin – MEC and Maxus – are to merge their businesses as part of a wider global reorganisation which has been announced by WPP.
MEC Dublin, which operates out of offices in Dublin’s Ely Place, employs around 30 staff while Maxus, which is located on High Street employs around 28 staff. It is expected that the merger of the two agencies will be completed by the end of the year and a name change for the newly enlarged agency has yet to be decided upon.
MEC is headed up by David Hayes while Maxus is headed up by Jonathan Conlon. Clients of MEC include Vodafone, Haagen Dazs, Yoplait and Carr’s Biscuits while clients of Maxus include the GAA, McCain, L’Oreal, Nestlé and Huawei.
According to GroupM, the merger will result in a number of cost-savings and these will be used to expand digital agency Essence, which GroupM acquired in 2015, into a data-driven full-service media shop. The new agency is being billed as a “billion dollar revenue, media, content and technology agency” and will be headed up globally by Tim Castree, MEC’s current chief executive.
The Maxus and MEC merger follows similar moves at competitive holding companies to streamline increasingly commoditized media buying services. Publicis Groupe, for example, reorganized its media business in early 2016 by breaking internal holding groups Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia into four global agencies. Publicis also merged digital agencies SapientNitro and Razorfish into combined entity SapientRazorfish.
