A group of creative advertising agencies are coming together to form a new company called Residence, CEO Jeff Ellermeyer exclusively told Axios.
Why is this important: It’s the last of a flurry of mergers and acquisitions activity in the agency space as small businesses seek to adapt to changing client priorities and grapple with the ever-growing mass of the advertising world’s “Big Six.”
Details: The residency will be led by the management team of the Buck creative studio, in addition to Ellermeyer. The merger includes Buck, Giant Ant and the HudsonBec Group, which includes seven companies. Here is the full list of Residence companies:
- Anyway creative, a London-based agency whose clients include Google, Nike, Adobe and Sonos.
- malea Los Angeles-based agency whose clients include Airbnb, Vivo, and Nike.
- Creative lives in progressa UK-based career platform for advertising creatives that caters to underrepresented groups.
- giant anta Vancouver-based animation studio whose clients include Google, Cartoon Network, Airbnb and Warner Bros. some animations for Hulu’s “Animaniacs” reboot.
- If You Could Jobsa UK-based jobs platform for creatives.
- That’s right, an online platform for creators and designers to talk about their work which reaches 2 million people per month.
- VTProDesign, a Los Angeles-based interactive studio that works with Netflix, Google, Ray-Ban and Heineken. male acquired VTProDesign in June.
Between the lines: Ellermeyer compares Residence’s structure to a cooperative.
- “We merge companies and give them some equity in the collective network,” he says. “So there is money on the table, but this is not the place to sell your business and leave.”
- Some will be more integrated with Buck, while others will operate independently.
- The combined workforce of Residence employees exceeds 735, including 600 from Buck. Collectively, the group generated $170 million in adjusted revenue for 2022.
- This puts Residence at the smaller end of the holding company level.
The big picture: Slowing advertising and ever-changing consumer habits are making the fight for clients’ jobs more complex than ever. Many clients turn to agencies that can offer multiple means of marketing to their consumers.
- Ellermeyer wants Residence to grow, but says they’ll make a respectable music video.
- “We consider talent at the level at which we operate to be a finite resource,” he said. “We would merge into many companies if we were aligned and they were operating at a very high level.”
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