Dentsu Aegis has announced that it is merging four of its agency brands into one for the UK market, to be led by Fetch UK CEO Patrick Affleck.
Digital agency 360i, mobile-first Fetch and social specialists ICUC will be merged under the dentsu X brand to form a new “modern marketing agency”, offering solutions that focus on the “entire customer experience”.
“By bringing together such diverse and dynamic talent we can tackle any challenge for our clients, devising more creative solutions to solve these in an effort to grow their brands and businesses faster,” said Affleck, who has also held senior positions at agencies including 360i USA, Vizeum and ZenithOptimedia.
“We’re excited to get going and to realise the potential of all of these brilliant minds working together.”
According to Thursday’s announcement the process is already underway, and is expected to be completed by 1 January 2020.
The new dentsu X will serve clients including Jaguar Land Rover, Converse and Lidl, and will operate out of the agency’s UK headquarters in London.
Commenting on the news, Euan Jarvie, chief executive of Dentsu Aegis Network UK & Ireland, added that dentsu X already has a “unique” position within the UK advertising sector as the first global media agency to be born out of the Asian market.
“By bringing these four strong, growing agencies together under a single identity, we’ve not only created one of the biggest agencies in our UK network but underlined our commitment to offer our clients integrated services,” he said.
“It is a network designed for and by the digital economy and possesses nimble processes to get to results fast.”
Meanwhile, dentsu X’s global president Mike Nakamura has relocated to the agency’s London headquarters, a move that the network claims is a “demonstration of dentsu Inc’s commitment to scale dentsu X in western markets”.
“I’m really excited to be expanding dentsu X’s presence in the UK market by combining the talents and strength of four great agencies built for the digital economy,” Nakamura said.
“dentsu X UK will be one of our most advanced offices globally and will be the hub of innovation in western markets, changing the centre of the gravity in our network and realising our meta-national concept.”
