Creature London, which was acquired by Dutch marketing group Candid a couple of years ago, is now being merged with two other agencies in the group, despite initial promises to the contrary. Together with Positive UK and Positive Netherlands, Creature London will now be known as Modern Citizens.
Matthew Robinson, the former Joint boss who joined as CEO of the two London agencies six months ago, will lead the three merged offices. Creature founders Stu Outhwaite-Noel and Ben Middleton are now co-CCOs of Modern Citizen, which will offer advertising, digital, data, content creation, performance marketing and CX.
There about 100 employees working across the offices in London’s Covent Garden, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and we are told that no redundances are planned. Creature London had some high-profile defections following the acquisition, including co-founder Dan Cullen-Shute and chief client officer Hanisha Kotecha, while Positive worldwide CEO Julian Reiter also left after nearly 29 years.
Robinson said: “It’s been such a pleasure working with the extraordinary people across Creature, Positive London and Positive Netherlands to build something we all believe this industry is crying out for – a great modern agency powered by creativity, technology and humanity.”
Current clients at Creature include Dunelm and Jose Cuervo, while Positive works with Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, Sodexo (hospitality) and DHL.
Rudiger Wanck, Candid CEO, said: “By bringing together these strong agencies under a single umbrella united with a single leadership team we are creating a full service modular comms agency able to deliver above the line, below the line and fully digital communication and performance solutions.”