WEDNESDAY 6 FEB 2013 12:10 PM

MAJOR MERGER OF DIGITAL AGENCIES

In a worldwide digital coup, Digitas and LBi announced yesterday that they would merge to form DigitasLBi. Publicis, which owns both agencies in addition to Saatchi & Saatchi, Razorfish and a plethora of other agencies worldwide, acquired LBi in September, likely in response to the WPP buyout of AKQA just four months prior. Digitas has been under the Publicis umbrella since 2007.

LBi CEO Luke Taylor was appointed Global CEO of DigitasLBi. Other staffing changes have yet to take place, however, the groups are strong in different regions, perhaps prohibiting large-scale integration-based redundancies. However, Digitas’ prevalence in the United States and LBi’s European supremacy will make the new agency a force to be reckoned with among worldwide digital agencies.

Publicis says that the two agencies’ strengths in digital will complement each other and provide a superior experience for the client once merged into the DigitasLBi super-agency.

“Advertisers need a truly integrated and global digital network,” Maurice Lévy, chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, says. “The combination of Digitas and LBi will create the world’s leading concentration of digital skills and competencies in the world, capable of delivering solutions to all clients, everywhere.”

Stephen Beringer, Digitas CEO, will oversee the process of integrating the two agencies. The UK arm of Digitas, Kitcatt Nohr Digitas has not announced plans to merge with the London outpost of LBi as of yet.