Dentsu has confirmed that its Vizeum media agency brand will be merged with iProspect.
The global performance media shop is expected to be reworked into an end-to-end media agency to complement Carat, Campaign US reports.
According to the outlet, dentsu this week began the merger of Vizeum into iProspect, which it reportedly hopes will be completed by March.
It comes after Campaign UK in October revealed dentsu was planning to merge the agencies in the UK in November. However, this latest news reportedly represents the first time the company has confirmed the Vizeum brand is disappearing internationally.
The first market to formally merge was Australia, where Vizeum integrated into iProspect in August.
iProspect’s global president, Amanda Morissey, told Campaign US the international merger is part of a company-wide effort, which began in 2019, to merge dentsu agency brands and to simplify the business.
The new iProspect will reportedly have 8,000 people working in 126 offices across 93 markets.
Morissey said that iProspect was chosen over Vizeum because it is “more globally scaled” and better fits the “performance-driven brand-building” agency characteristic than Vizeum or a new agency.
The brands also share clients, including Ikea, Sonos, William Grant, and Shiseido.
“The brand-building element, the storytelling that we get out, and the strategic leadership that we get out of Vizeum is a very important part of our proposition,” Morissey told Campaign US.
“And so, when we bring these teams together, we’re not merging them, we’re creating integrated teams and integrated hubs.
“So whether a brief comes in that is performance only, or if it’s a media and performance brief, or it’s a brand-building brief, we’ve tested different ways of building the capabilities in the team to make sure that we keep that Vizeum essence right at the heart of what we’re delivering.”
Morrissey added that Vizeum had an “amazing” brand from a media planning perspective, saying that she is keen for the new iProspect not to lose that characteristic.
“As a newcomer into the organisation working with Vizeum, it’s that absolute super focus on innovation, on not ‘challenger brands’, but ‘challenger thinking’,” Morrisey told Campaign US.
“The way that they can pivot around the digital world and what clients need in that world is absolutely astounding. And so we’ve worked really hard to make sure that we don’t lose that.”
The news comes after Tokyo-headquartered parent conglomerate Dentsu Group revealed plans to slash 12.5 per cent of its global workforce—some 6000 jobs—over the next 12 months.
According to Campaign US, Morrissey would not be drawn on December media speculation that Dentsu planned to boil down all its agency brands to just six globally.
In other news, iProspect recently announced the appointment of Marcello Gomez as general manager of the company’s Sydney office.
