Omnicom has formally announced the formation of Omnicom Oceania. As previously reported by B&T, the move aligns all Omnicom’s practice areas across Australia and New Zealand, including market-leading media and creative agencies, PR, performance marketing, production, and more, under a unified leadership structure.
B&T understands that after Garrett’s appointment, TBWA boss Paul Bradbury has tendered his resignation. Bradbury joined TBWA in 2006. In that time, he oversaw agencies in the TBWA Australia and New Zealand group, including TBWA Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, +61, TBWA Media Arts Lab, Eleven, Fleishman Hillard, Fabric, Bolt, and TBWA Sustain.
Reports suggest that Bradbury’s resignation followed differences of opinion over Garrett’s roles and his plans for the future of the Omnicom Advertising Group and Omnicom Media Group businesses in the region.
The new structure reflects Omnicom’s commitment to flexibility, innovation, and deep specialization, adapting to an ever-changing landscape and ensuring it delivers the best fit solution for clients. Tapping into Omnicom’s significant investment in its Omni platform, Omni AI tools and more, the group has already redefined the market by building high-performance orchestration models such as +61 for Telstra and Smith Street for Coles.
“Increasingly, clients in this market are looking for deep specialism and seamless integration. Recent Forrester wave reports have proven that Omnicom is the unrivalled leader across key marketing specializations. We have successfully deployed these specializations with many leading clients in the market, and this organisational shift accelerates our ability to deliver this model to more clients across the region,” said John Wren, Omnicom Chairman and CEO.
Omnicom Oceania will be led by Nick Garrett as CEO. In his new role, Garrett will collaborate closely with brand agency leaders to deliver integrated solutions and a more seamless experience for Omnicom’s clients and their customers.
Garrett returns to Omnicom after 4 years at Deloitte Digital, where he joined as a Brand & Creative Partner in 2021. Within his first year, he joined the Global Leadership team, later becoming Global CMO. Locally and internationally, he drove upstream consulting services at the intersection of creativity, technology and transformation. Before Deloitte, Garrett spent almost a decade leading BBDO agencies, Clemenger and Colenso and, prior to that, worked at TBWA in Sydney and LA.
“My time in the consulting world showed me just how big the opportunity is to add creative problem solving and brand thinking further upstream into business strategy, and how agencies can positively influence more of the customer eco-system beyond marketing and comms. There is a huge amount of white space to grow into, and I am absolutely thrilled to be returning to the Omnicom family to continue to drive growth at an accelerated pace,” Garrett said.
“We have the advantage of best-in-class capabilities and talent across practice areas, built on the foundations of world-leading data, AI, technologies and tools. Nick’s deep knowledge of Omnicom and his advisory experience make him the ideal leader to orchestrate these capabilities and drive the growth ambitions of our clients,” Wren added.
The move will see Garrett reporting into Wren, and the changes are effective immediately.
