BMF has announced it will merge Naked’s team and clients to the business, in a move to “strengthen its strategic and creative services offering to clients”.

Under the BMF brand, the merged businesses will continue to focus on helping marketers navigate their increasingly complex landscapes.

BMF MD Stephen McArdle said: “BMF and Naked have always shared a belief in the power of creativity to deliver outstanding results for our clients and a reputation for world class strategic thinking.

“Naked was born of a focus on unconventional thinking that has been the hallmark of the Naked brand since conception. BMF’s focus is on delivering enduring ideas for brands and maintaining an obsession with effectiveness.”

The move comes soon after BMF’s ‘Santa Crashes Christmas’ for ALDI Stores Australia campaign won two gold, two silver and three bronze awards at the AWARD Awards, and Naked won three gold and three silver awards for its ‘Sans Forgetica’ campaign for RMIT University.

BMF were also recently named NSW Agency of the year at the B&T Awards.

McArdle continued: “We are incredibly excited about our teams joining forces. They have impressive talent, great clients, a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit and a breed of work that we have long admired and that will further enhance the creative output.”

Matthew Melhuish, CEO Enero Group, said: “As we continue to reimagine the future for Enero and look to build strong businesses to take advantage of the changing marketing landscape, we saw a great opportunity to bring together the skills within Naked and BMF.

By adding Naked’s strength in media-neutral strategy and innovative creativity to a BMF team who are already performing brilliantly, we are creating a stronger business that has even more potential.

Melhuish concluded: “Both agencies have great clients and produce great work; I’m excited to see what they will produce now they are working together.”

Meanwhile, Precinct will be merging into the business under the Hotwire brand from July 1.

Precinct offers extensive expertise in strategic marketing services, branding, design, stakeholder relations, events, and internal communications services.

These services will add to Hotwire’s already extensive communications offering, spanning corporate communications, crisis management, media relations, analyst relations, digital communications and content strategy, to deliver a truly integrated end-to-end solution for marketing leaders.  

Based in Sydney and Melbourne, the Australian strategy and marketing services team will be led by Jaime Nelson, previous MD of Precinct who joins Hotwire as managing director, strategy and marketing services for Hotwire Australia. 

Nelson will lead the introduction of expanded services in Australia and work across Hotwire to expand capabilities to clients globally. The strategy and marketing services team will provide integrated solutions for clients alongside the fast-growing Australian communications team which is led by MD, Mylan Vu.  

Barbara Bates, Hotwire global CEO commented: “At Hotwire, we’re constantly looking ahead at what our clients need from us today and to keep pace with what they’ll need in the future.

“The media relations pool has radically changed, the value of owned content is skyrocketing, and the pressure on marketers to be more strategic about high stakes communications is at an all-time high.  Marketers need partners that understand all aspects of their remit and can flex and scale as they need.