WPP, the world’s largest marketing communications company, on Tuesday announced that it was merging group agencies Burson-Marstellar and Cohn & Wolfe, both operating in public relations (PR), to deliver integrated solutions to clients.
The merger, which affects India as well, is expected to hasten consolidation in the domestic PR agency business, which has seen an emergence of big five marketing communications companies WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Interpublic, and Dentsu largely through acquisition.
Only a year and a half ago, Japanese major Dentsu had acquired independent PR agency Perfect Relations in India in a move that mirrored consolidation in the larger advertising and media