17273: Delayed WTF 64—Saluting International ERG Day.

 

MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.

 

International Employee Resource Group Day was celebrated on November 17, 2025.

 

Or was it? Don’t recall any White advertising agencies or White holding companies commemorating the occasion via performative PR and social media posts.

 

Then again, executing such messages would’ve undoubtedly been delegated to resident ERGs.

 

Also, Omnicom and IPG were probably plotting to prune and/or eliminate redundant ERGs.

17272: FCB RIP.

Advertising Age presented a retrospective on the eliminated FCB, highlighting milestones and signature changes throughout the years.

 

It’s a safe bet VYSICAL CEO Howard Draft feels the FCB finale is karmic retribution for having his name ingloriously erased from the masthead in 2014.

17271: On Omnicom Number Games.

 

Leaders at the new Omnicom presented a variety of spin to address the 4,000 jobs—and presumably, 4,000 humans—being ejected from the ginormous White holding company.

 

Omnicom Media CEO Florian Adamski refused to let layoffs define the story of the corporate acquisition scheme. “This is not about eradicating jobs,” Adamski insisted. “This is about building a company for the future.” Right. Except 4,000 people are now learning they won’t be part of the future—and may soon face difficult times ahead.

 

Omnicom Chairman, CEO, and Pioneer of Diversity John Wren said, “[Globally eliminating 4,000 positions is] going to allow us to meet and exceed the synergies that we promised the marketplace last December.”

 

That’s political rhetoric meaning, “I must deliver the cost reductions I promised to shareholders and investors.” In short, Wren will keep his job by cutting 4,000 drones’ jobs.

  

Wren also claimed impacted workers will be notified ASAP in December so as “not to leave people in a state of doubt.” Um, people at Omnicom and IPG have been left in varying states of doubt, confusion, and anxiety since December 2024 when the deal was announced.

 

Finally, Wren positioned the overall firing figure as “a very low single-digit type of efficiency.”

 

Advertising practitioners love to shift perspectives to distort perceptions. So, let’s play the game.

 

Sure, 4,000 bodies might not appear to be a big deal when viewed against the Omnicom and IPG combined total headcount. Hell, the two White holding companies already dumped roughly 6,200 drones ahead of the acquisition.

 

Yet has any multicrumbtual advertising agency ever had 4,000 employees? Combining the total rosters of every Black advertising agency—past and present—would likely fall far short of 4,000.

 

Has the US advertising industry ever employed 4,000 Dawn Chambers? Based on 2017 data from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there are probably much fewer than 400 Black women executives in Adland USA.

 

Sorry, but “a very low single-digit type of efficiency” equates to a very high triple-digit type of indifference.

17270: Reviewing Restructuring, Redundancies & RIFs.

Adweek reported Omnicom—upon closing its acquisition of IPG—announced the new structure along with the new leadership team.

 

As previously leaked, iconic White advertising agencies—including FCB, DDB, and MullenLowe—are being dumped.

 

Ditto 4,000 drones worldwide.

 

Given the honcho squad was immediately unveiled, it’s a safe bet the soon-to-be-unemployed have already been identified. Omnicom Chairman, CEO, and Pioneer of Diversity John Wren admitted as much when stating layoffs are rolling out currently.

 

Wren’s Naughty and Nice List undoubtedly rivals Santa’s annual performance review.

 

Omnicom to Cut 4,000 Jobs, Retire FCB, DDB, and MullenLowe 

 

BBDO, TBWA, and McCann emerge as the three global creative networks in post-IPG overhaul

 

By Audrey Kemp and Alison Weissbrot

 

Omnicom has announced its new structure and leadership team on the heels of completing its $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group on Wednesday.

The new holding company, led by John Wren as CEO, is organized into seven core divisions.

 

Creative arm Omnicom Advertising, which will continue to be led by current CEO and president Troy Ruhanen, includes TBWA, BBDO, and McCann as its three global networks. FCB will roll under BBDO, while DDB and MullenLowe become part of the TBWA network. All three brands will cease to exist.

 

Omnicom Media, run by Florian Adamski, includes legacy Omnicom agencies OMD, PHD, Hearts & Science, as well as former IPG agencies Mediahub, Initiative, and UM. It is the largest media organization globally by billings.

 

Duncan Painter will lead the Flywheel Commerce Network and OmniPlus, an upgraded version of the Omni platform, as CEO, while Sergio Lopez remains leading Omnicom Production, which will merge with IPG’s Craft. Luke Taylor will continue to run Omnicom Precision Marketing and Chris Foster will oversee Omnicom Public Relations.

 

Each division is led by a former Omnicom vet, save for Omnicom Health, which will be led by Dana Maiman (IPG Health) as CEO. She reports to Michael Larson, CEO of Omnicom Diversified Agency Services, who was previously interim CEO of Omnicom Health.

 

Additionally, all clients will have a dedicated lead, or “client success leader,” that ensures each is getting access to the right set of tools, talent, and capabilities across the network. These execs roll up into Jacki Kelly, chief client and business officer (formerly of IPG) and Andrea Lennon, chief client experience officer (formerly of Omnicom).

 

George Manas, former CEO of OMD Worldwide, will become chief growth and solutions officer, focused on orchestrating bespoke tech and data solutions for enterprise clients.

 

Omnicom execs Daryl Simm and Phil Angelastro will stay on as COO and CFO, respectively. Former IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky will remain as co-president and COO.

 

All entities with the name “IPG,” such as IPG Health and IPG Mediabrands, have been eliminated.

 

4,000 jobs on the line

 

As part of the restructuring, Wren estimates that around 4,000 positions will be eliminated globally. “That’s going to allow us to meet and exceed the synergies that we promised the marketplace last December,” he told ADWEEK.

 

The job cuts are in addition to the 3,200 roles IPG shed this year ahead of the acquisition, and the 3,000 staffers Omnicom let go after announcing the deal last fall.

 

The anticipated layoffs, which Wren said are rolling out currently, will bring the total number of eliminated positions to around 10,000, or roughly 8% of the combined organization’s 2024 headcount.

 

Cuts are focused on removing duplicate positions and trimming unnecessary management layers, Wren said. While he acknowledged that the layoffs impact “a lot of people’s lives, and we’re terribly sensitive to it,” he described the overall number as “a very low single-digit type of efficiency.”

 

Wren said affected employees will be notified as quickly as possible heading into December so as “not to leave people in a state of doubt.” Ruhanen said reductions began Oct. 1.

 

Adamski pushed back on framing the cuts as the defining story of the acquisition. “This is not about eradicating jobs. This is about building a company for the future,” he said.

 

Creative darlings

 

Omnicom chose BBDO, TBWA, and McCann as its global creative networks moving forward because of their clear positioning, established client relationships, and broad international footprints, Wren said.

 

“We’ve made the choice of which culture we want it to be, which brand we want it to be, and which methodology we’re putting our effort behind,” added Ruhanen.

 

Omnicom is also keeping many of its boutique and specialist agencies under the Omnicom Advertising Collective as well as IPG’s boutique creative agencies intact, including The Martin Agency, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Lucky Generals, Zimmerman, Mercury, GMR, Carmichael Lynch, GSD&M, Grabarz & Partners, Antoni, Lola, Africa, Serino Coyne, Bright Red Agency, and Merkley & Partners.

 

Specialist agencies such as Alma (which was part of the DDB network), Dieste, TMA, Agency 720, and Platinum Rye Entertainment will also remain intact.

 

Omnicom experiential agencies will continue to report to Ruhanen, while legacy IPG experiential shops will report to Krakowsky “for the time being,” Ruhanen said.

 

He added that employees will receive communications about reporting lines and transitions this week—“basically as quickly as possible” to move forward with the transition.

 

Media and Tech

 

A major focus of the announcement was OmniPlus, the next iteration of the Omni platform underpinned by Acxiom’s Real ID and Flywheel’s commerce infrastructure. Painter said OmniPlus will formally launch at CES 2026 and begin rolling out to the company’s top 10 major clients in Q1.

 

“It will be a fully end-to-end, integrated operating system for Omnicom, going from creative thought all the way through to media execution and reporting through to sales… all linked back to single consumer records by brand,” he told ADWEEK.

 

Paolo Yuvienco, Omnicom’s chief technology officer, added that the combined data set is “by far, bar none, the most elite data set in the world” on the buy side of advertising, and is already integrated with Omnicom’s agentic AI tools.

 

Media scale is also an anticipated advantage of the combination. Bringing the two organizations together, at a combined $73.4 billion in billings, will create a media powerhouse that “can get the best commercial deals for our clients and for ourselves,” Wren said.

 

Adamski emphasized, however, that principal media remains a “small portion” of Omnicom’s overall billings, but is an important “modern vehicle” for creating commercial value. “People that continue to simply claim that we’re growing because of principal media—it’s just not true. But my job is to bring the best possible value to our clients,” he said.

 

What’s certain is that Omnicom is building for a world where AI plays a central role in marketing. As Adamski put it: “In five years from now, we will be advertising and communicating with AI more than to human audiences.”

 

Editor’s Note 12/1 at 9:35am ET: This story has been updated to remove incorrect information provided by Omnicom about how the Omnicom Advertising Collective will be structured moving forward, including which agencies remain intact.

17269: New Omnicom Leads The Status Quo.

Adweek, Advertising Age, and other trade publications reported on reshuffled leadership at the new Omnicom after its acquisition of IPG, featuring executives selected from both present and pruned White holding companies.

 

The headshots (depicted above) display moderate DEIBA+ and divertsity.

 

Not surprisingly, the performative PR has no inclusion of a leading Chief Diversity Officer or Human Heat Shield—although the updated Omnicom website features a Global Chief Inclusion and Impact Officer who has been with the White holding company for roughly five years.

 

So, it looks like DEIBA+ decisions were quietly executed.

 

Did redundancy rejiggering reduce non-White representation overall, as well as diminish the number of Dawn Chambers within Omnicom, accelerating the unemployment challenges impacting US Black women?

 

This would constitute a DEIBA+ fail, no?

 

Welcome to Omnicom: The world’s leading marketing and sales company. Which looks like all White holding companies comprised of White advertising agencies.

17268: Regarding Redundancies, RIFs & Racism.

 

Much has been discussed on redundancies in the Omnicom acquisition of IPG, especially given the two White holding companies share many similarities regarding talent, services, practices, and property.

 

Yet it seems no one has examined addressing the DEIBA+ duplications.

 

The scheme combined one White holding company led by a Pioneer of Diversity with another White holding company regularly spewing gobbledygook about being “recognized for leadership in diversity and inclusion.”

 

Why, it’s a cornucopia of commitment to cultural competence via performative PR, heat shields, divertsity, and faux philanthropy.

 

So, how many Chief Diversity Officers and Human Heat Shields does one White holding company need? Will ERGs be downsized, eliminated, or blended? What about proprietary programs like ADCOLOR®? Or delegating drafting the global DEIBA+ dedication declaration?

 

DEIBA+ has historically been relegated well below pressing professional priorities. Right now, AI (Artificial Intelligence) trumps AI (Artificial Inclusivity).

 

Will the Omnicom-IPG scenario present an opportunity to make progress or maintain the status quo/systemic racism?

 

The current anti-DEIBA+ vibe in the industry hints at the answer. Don’t expect transparency, tactics, or truth in the execution. Accountability and integrity will be in short supply too.

17267: Overreaction Of The Week.

 

Norlop VML in Ecuador is responsible for this White Energy stunt explained as follows:

 

White Energy is the first initiative that transforms a stadium’s emotion into real energy. During Liga de Quito’s Noche Blanca, we captured the fans’ chants and vibrations, converted them into clean kWh, and stored them in four Chery EQ7 vehicles. With that energy, we lit up the stadium for the first time in history.

 

Hey, the agency could’ve converted the White energy at VML to light up the entire country.

17266: FYI IPG RIP.

 

MediaPost reported IPG was officially delisted by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after being acquired by Omnicom.

 

Next, expect thousands of redundant drones to be delisted from the rosters of White advertising agencies within the expanded Omnicom empire.

 

After A Half Century ‘IPG’ Is Delisted

 

By Joe Mandese

 

After more than half a century of trading under the “IPG” ticker symbol, the Interpublic Group of Companies has officially been delisted by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

 

Following the closing of its acquisition by Omnicom earlier this week, the consolidated company will continue to trade as “OMC” on the NYSE.

 

Omnicom was a relatively late entry to public trading, launching its IPO in 1986—15 years after IPG—following the “big bang” merger of BBDO, Doyle Dane Bernbach and Needham Harper Steers that formed Omnicom.

 

Papert Koenig Lois (“PKL”) was the first U.S. agency to go public in 1962.

 

A year later, Foote, Cone & Belding went public, sparking a wave of major agency public offerings, including Doyle Dane Bernbach (1964), Grey Advertising (1965), J. Walter Thompson (1969), and Interpublic (1971), which ultimately led to the public market capitalization that fueled the merger and acquisition activity that created the modern day agency holding companies.

17265: Black Women Friday.

 

The Associated Press reported on the disproportionate unemployment challenges experienced by US Black women.

 

Can’t help but wonder how worse things are for all the Dawn Chambers in Adland, who have historically been underutilized, underpaid, and underrepresented—a situation compounded by the anti-DEIBA+ vibe impacting the industry and society at large.

 

 

As Black women face unemployment challenges, a roundtable of policymakers searches for solutions

 

By Matt Brown

 

In a packed room at library in a downtown Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley posed a blunt question: Why are Black women, who have some of the highest labor force participation rates in the country, now seeing their unemployment rise faster than most other groups?

The replies Monday from policymakers, academics, business owners and community organizers laid out how economic headwinds facing Black women may indicate a troubling shift for the economy at large.

 

The unemployment rate for Black women increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August and September this year, the most recent month for available data because of the federal government shutdown.

 

That compares with a 3.2% to 3.4% increase for white women over the same period. And it extended a year-long trend of the Black women’s unemployment rate increasing at a time of broad economic uncertainty.

 

Many roundtable attendees view those numbers as both an affront and a warning about the uneven pressures on Black women.

 

“Everyone is missing out when we’re pushed out of the workforce,” said Pressley, a progressive Democrat. “That is something that I worry about now, that you have all these women with specific expertise and specializations that we’re being deprived of.”

 

And when Black women do have work, she said they tend to be “woefully underemployed.”

 

Black women had the highest labor force participation rate of any female demographic in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet their unemployment rate remains higher than other demographics of women.

 

Historically, their unemployment rate has trended slightly above the national average, widening during periods of slowed economic growth or recession. Black Americans are overrepresented in industries like retail, health and social services, and government administration, according to a 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey.

 

“Black women are at the center of the Venn diagram that is our society,” said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a PhD candidate in public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.

 

She pointed to April as the month when Black women’s unemployment began to diverge more sharply from other groups. A policy agenda that ignores the causes, she said, could harm the broader economy.

 

Roundtable participants cited many long-standing structural inequities but attributed most of the latest divergence to recent federal actions. They blamed the Trump administration’s downsizing of the Minority Business Development Agency and the cancellation of some federal contracts with non-profits and small businesses, saying those actions disproportionately impacted Black women. Others said tariff policies and mass federal layoffs also contributed to the strain.

 

The administration’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives was repeatedly mentioned by participants as a cause for a more hostile environment for Black women to find employment, customers or government contracting.

 

There is no concrete data on how many Black federal workers were laid off, fired or otherwise dismissed as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts through the federal government.

 

The attendees discussed a wide range of potential solutions to the unemployment rate for Black women, including using state budgets to bolster business development for Black women, expanding microloans to different communities, increasing government resources for contracting, requiring greater transparency on corporate hiring practices and encouraging state and federal officials to enforce anti-discrimination policies.

 

“I feel like I was just at church,” said Ruthzee Louijeune, the Boston City Council president, as the meeting wrapped up. She encouraged attendees to keep up their efforts, and she defended DEI policies as essential to a healthy workforce and political system. Without broad-based efforts, the Democrat said, the country’s business and political leadership would be “abnormal” and weakened.

 

“Any space that does not look like our country and like our cities is not normal,” she said, “and not the city or country we are trying to build.”

17264: Omnicom Closes IPG Scheme, Opens Adland Apocalypse.

 

Adweek reported on Omnicommoditization—that is, Omnicom closed its acquisition of IPG to create the largest White holding company and extend the commoditization of Adland.

 

Omnicom Chairman, CEO, and Pioneer of Diversity John Wren declared, “This is a defining moment for our company and our industry.”

 

The defining truly begins by identifying redundancies and executing reductions in force.

 

Starting on Thanksgiving, Wren will proceed to carve up the biggest turkey ever—with plenty of White meat.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

Omnicom Closes $13B IPG Deal, Uniting Rivals in Industry-Shaping Acquisition 

 

The unprecedented consolidation of Madison Avenue giants creates the largest advertising group in the world

 

By Audrey Kemp

 

Nearly a year after announcing the deal, Omnicom has officially closed its $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group, creating the world’s largest advertising and marketing holding company by revenue and billings.

 

Under the all-stock agreement, Omnicom shareholders will own 60.6% of the combined company’s stock, and IPG shareholders 39.4%. Combined, the companies posted an estimated $26 billion in annual revenue in 2024.

 

John Wren will remain chairman and CEO of the company, while Phil Angelastro stays on as evp and CFO, and former IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky and Daryl Simm will serve as co-presidents and COOs. 

 

“This is a defining moment for our company and our industry,” said John Wren, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom, in a statement. “With the completion of the deal, Omnicom is setting a new standard for modern marketing and sales leadership—creating stronger brands, delivering superior business outcomes, and driving sustainable growth. We’re excited about this next chapter. I want to thank our people, clients, and shareholders for the trust they have placed in us.”  

 

First announced in December 2024, the acquisition cleared its last regulatory hurdle earlier this week when the European Commission granted approval. The EU’s decision came two months after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleared way for the deal to close in September, with a consent decree prohibiting Omnicom from directing advertiser spend based on political or ideological preferences.

 

The combination of two rival holdcos will remap the global agency landscape. The closest historical precedent was the proposed 2013 merger between Publicis and Omnicom, which ultimately collapsed over leadership disagreements.

 

By acquiring IPG, Omnicom is scaling up on data and technology to better serve its enterprise clients across the marketing funnel and compete in a consolidating media landscape. It’s a shift has already pushed rival holding companies to simplify and invest in data and tech over the past decade.

 

Omnicom has projected $750 million in cost synergies as a result of the combination. To get there, so far, IPG has eliminated 3,200 jobs since January, Omnicom culled 3,000 jobs at the end of last year.

 

CEO John Wren has emphasized that Omnicom is working to keep client-facing teams intact, while back-office roles are more likely to be affected.

 

As the new Omnicom takes shape, it will have to carefully navigate new client conflicts. It now works with fierce rivals across categories, such as AT&T and T-Mobile in telco, or State Farm and GEICO in insurance.

 

Careful change management will also be key, as it is widely expected that not all of the agencies will survive under their new parent. Last month, reports circulated that Omnicom will eliminate its global DDB network; in November, global CEO Alex Lubar left the agency without plans to backfill his role.

17263: On Turtles & Tossers.

 

Oh, look! Another contrived environmental protection campaign starring victimized sea turtles. Somebody should’ve tossed it in the initial concept stage.