WPP has bought out the remaining minority shareholdings in T&Pm, Johnny Hornby’s agency that started life as Clemmow Hornby Inge and morphed via CHI & Partners through The&Partnership to its current guise which incorporates the agency’s M/Six media operation.
T&Pm is now a substantial business with 1,800 people in 42 locations around the world. Its clients include Amazon, Argos, British Gas, EA, Mars, NatWest, News UK and Toyota which it handles on a full-service basis in Europe. WPP first bought into the agency in 2007 with a 49.9% stake before moving to a majority holding in 2019.
As ever, with any communication from WPP (and indeed T&Pm) these days, there’s the drumbeat of AI, in particularly WPP’s Open system.
WPP CEO Mark Read says: “Two years ago, I showed Johnny the early iterations of WPP Open, our AI-powered operating system for marketing. He immediately saw its transformational potential and has since become one of its most compelling advocates. T&Pm is a great example of how we are putting AI at the heart of the groundbreaking work we do for our clients.”
Hornby (above) says: “This is a very exciting next phase for us. Our belief in the superior agility of integrated teams has fuelled our global success. Now, AI is transforming the speed at which we can partner with clients to create growth and WPP’s early investment in Open gives us a big advantage.”
Inevitably there’ll be questions about how long Hornby and other agency stalwarts including former UK boss (now partner) Sarah Golding stick around. T&Pm recently appointed media executive Victoria Appleby from Channel 4 as its new UK group CEO in a restructure. Hornby is also involved in Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone beer business while wife Clare is the founder of successful fashion brand ME+EM, recently launched in the US.
