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Adam&eveDDB wins Samsung in the US as British agency brand goes global

Adam&eveDDB is taking the first step towards becoming a new global agency within Omnicom by opening a New York office.

The agency has won Samsung in North America (a few weeks ago we tipped it to win Samsung in Europe, which is still a possibility). A&E already handles some North American business for Mars pet brands snd eorks on other global accounts including Volkswagen.

The news is a big pointer to the futures of A&E founders James Murphy, Ben Priest David Golding and Jon Forsyth (below), currently negotiating their three-year earn-out from Omnicom, which is likely to cost the US-based holding company north of £60m. Omnicom would hardly be investing in a new agency network if the leading lights were to depart. There has been speculation that CEO Murphy was planning to start an agency called Seven, built around seven key clients. Some might see this as a way of concentrating Omnicom’s mind.

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Murphy, who is also chairman of the Advertising Association in the UK, has been leading new business presentations in New York for the past few months. It’s thought DDB had offered him other senior roles, including EMEA head.

But Murphy and co. like doing their own thing (they’re the only major Omnicom company in the UK not to move into the massive new group HQ in London’s Southwark) and he believes the A&E brand can travel successfully. While it’s a big agency with a stellar creative reputation in the UK, in the US particularly it’s seen as a creative shot shop. These are increasingly attractive to advertisers focussing once again on creativity when budgets are being stretched by the growth of digital.

Samsung, a major advertiser in the US despite its recent travails with product recalls and the like, won’t be the only big adam&eve New York client.

One Comment

  1. Adam & Eve, DDB Worldwide, Adam&EveDDB, Tribal Worldwide…? I think it is probably time to select a single brand to create a unified, single global agency that builds brands in a mobile-centric, ominchannel world. The current mess just shouts of internal friction and misalignment.

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