Adweek reported Omnicom continues to reengineer firms and erase nameplates following the acquisition of IPG.
The latest scheme involves folding shopper marketing agency TPN under the masthead of retail media data agency Flywheel.
According to Adweek, the blending doesn’t ignite immediate redundancies or instant RIFs.
Then again, given the retail space is struggling to survive, how long can a rejiggered Flywheel, well, fly?
EXCLUSIVE: Omnicom Folds Shopper Marketing Agency TPN Into Flywheel
The move streamlines the holdco’s commerce media offering.
By Kathryn Lundstrom
Following its acquisition of IPG, Omnicom is streamlining its commerce media offering as it aims to compete with Publicis.
In the first of a series of changes for Omnicom’s commerce media business, the holding company is moving 40-year-old shopper marketing agency TPN under the Flywheel banner.
TPN was founded as The Promotion Network in the early 1980s in Dallas. Omnicom bought the agency in 2001. Now, it’ll be absorbed by Flywheel and the TPN brand will be sunset.
Mike Feldman, svp of commerce for Flywheel, described the move as an effort toward “operational integration” rather than traditional consolidation. It’s part of a wider effort to build a “connected commerce solution” within Omnicom, he said, combining Flywheel’s 15 years of retail media data with TPN’s four decades of shopper marketing work.
“By unifying shopper, brand, and retail media under one coordinated ecosystem, we will shape and elevate the new standard for how brands plan, activate, and measure across the entire commerce journey,” Alex McCord, CEO of Flywheel, said in a statement.
As part of the integration, former TPN president Sarah Cunningham has been appointed to chief retail experience officer at Flywheel, reporting directly to McCord.
Phil Camarota, former chief creative officer at Omnicom-owned agency TracyLocke, is now chief creative officer at Flywheel. Chris Rueckert, previously svp of commerce at TPN, moved to Flywheel in June and holds the same title. At the time of writing, there have been no confirmed layoffs as a result of the integration.
“Transitioning TPN into Flywheel underscores Omnicom’s commitment to leading the next wave of connected commerce,” Duncan Painter, CEO of Flywheel Commerce Network and Omni, said in a statement. Painter was previously CEO of Flywheel, and was tapped to lead Omnicom’s wider commerce practice following the IPG acquisition.
“The move marks a major milestone in Flywheel’s growth journey, combining TPN’s 40+ years or retail and creative expertise with Flywheel’s global scale in technology, data, and media to meet the rapidly changing needs of modern brands and shoppers,” Painter continued.
The change follows months of planning, Feldman said. Flywheel is also transitioning to a pod structure following the addition of TPN, meaning that teams will be organized around clients rather than around products.
That’s required cross training all of Flywheel’s teams so that staff can serve as strategic consultants across retail media, shopper marketing, ecommerce, product detail pages, and more, Feldman explained. That will allow those teams to better adapt the agency’s capabilities to the needs of the client rather than simply pulling levers — something that’ll only become more necessary as AI automates swaths of the media buying process.
While a client-oriented structure is more common in traditional ad agencies, it’s been less common for retail media agencies because of retail media’s inherent complexity, he said.
Looking ahead, Feldman noted there’ll be more to come as Omnicom’s connected commerce solution takes shape. The IPG acquisition means that Omnicom now has access to Acxiom’s data and identity solutions, as well as Kinesso’s talent. Those additions could help the agency better compete with Publicis, which made a series of retail media related acquisitions between
“I’m very bullish on [Acxiom],” Feldman said.
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