Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. OMG, IPG is finally happening!

Omnicom outlines new agency structure as IPG deal sharpens AI, data focus 
Source: Marketing Dive
December 1st, 2025

Summary: Omnicom has unveiled its new structure after closing its $13B acquisition of IPG last week.

The new Omnicom will have six divisions: media, advertising, public relations, production, diversified agency services, and one overseeing the Omni platform and Flywheel Commerce Network. 

Omnicom Media, for example, will include Hearts & Science, Initiative, Mediahub, OMD, PHD, UM, and Acxiom. Omnicom will sunset IPG's Mediabrands and Magna and consolidate their business within this division. 

Omnicom Advertising will include creative agencies BBDO, McCann, TBWA, and a new "US Advertising Collective" composed of Omnicom and IPG boutique agencies. IPG's MullenLowe and FCB brands are gone, as well as Omnicom's DDB. 

With these changes, Omnicom aims to meet five goals: build the industry's most robust media network, develop more impactful content, dominate connected commerce, accelerate enterprise-level gen AI capabilities, and lead in identity solutions. Omnicom will also launch an enterprise-wide global growth team and client success team.

Now, for the human cost. In 2024, Omnicom and IPG had roughly 120K employees collectively. Omnicom is cutting 4K jobs, and another 10K people will be impacted in some way. IPG also cut 3,200 jobs earlier in 2025🔒, in addition to 3K roles at Omnicom. Most executive roles went to Omnicom folks. Eileen Kiernan, the IPG Mediabrands Global CEO who transformed the organization, is out. 

Omnicom is targeting $750M in annual cost savings with the merger.

Opinion: Strip away all the fancy buzzwords from the press release for a minute. This deal is fundamentally about two things shareholders care about: scale and margin expansion. Mission accomplished. Omnicom now commands $73.5B in media billings (largest in the world) and the $750M in annual cost savings delivers an additional 3% margin on their combined $25B+ revenue base. Check and check.

But here's the downside of this glorified financial engineering exercise: 14,000 jobs eliminated or displaced, proven executives out the door, major agency brands erased, and an integration process that will be absolute chaos for the next 2-3 years. Clients hate uncertainty, and competitors are already circling. Account defections during integration could easily dwarf cost savings.

Meanwhile, the actual winners in the holdco game are playing a completely different sport. Publicis is reporting record new business growth🔒 powered by its data and identity capabilities through Epsilon. WPP hired ex-Microsoft exec Cindy Rose to transform itself into a technology company🔒, not just an agency network that talks about technology. These companies foresaw that the future of agencies isn't about having the highest media billings. It’s about data and tech.

Omnicom is set to dominate the traditional holding company model right as the model becomes obsolete.

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