IKEA has given its UK creative business to Ogilvy offshoot David with DDB’s Alma winning multicultural, a big sector for IKEA which is expanding in the US and spends around $200m.
Ogilvy previously handled the account but didn’t repitch although it stays in ultimate WPP ownership with David. Mother, which handles the business in the UK, also pitched.
Burbank Leader
David, named after David Ogilvy, has been a success for WPP even though many of its leading lights departed to set up happening agency Gut. It’s an interesting example of how what we might call boutique creative agencies can sometimes prosper in a kind of sideways deal: Havas bought Uncommon with just such a purpose in mind and now Ogilvy Group in the UK has New Commercial Arts. Havas also owns BETC.
How ‘independent’ are they? Did Ogilvy in the US think David had a better chance of landing IKEA? Did they even know it was pitching? In the UK NCA had to resign one of its flagships, Nationwide, because Ogilvy had a big chunk of CRM work for Lloyds. That must have been painful.
Not many creative agencies, however good they are, manage to remain truly independent for long; certainly not if they want to expand internationally. Many, like VCCP in the UK, thrive with private equity backing. True independents with a global footprint are thin on the ground: Wieden+Kennedy is one, Germany’s Serviceplan and Jung von Matt have built biggish networks albeit large based in Europe. Mother has a handful of global offices.
Quite how the big ad holding companies handle their ‘independents’ is hard to know without looking under the bonnet. Do they have to pay 30% or so to the holding company as the big networks do? Not, presumably, if they’re on an earn-out, as Uncommon is.
David, for now anyway, seems to be one of WPP’s successes in the creative arena.
