Agency Growth, M&A & Transformation 1st December 2025

Christmas is officially upon us, and it wouldn’t be the same without the brilliant Podge Events in London. Over 350 industry founders and leaders came together on Friday 5th December, and what a great day it was.

Founders have faced lots of challenges over the last 12-24 months, but many are seeing growth and a more positive outlook for 2026.

Continued restructuring and job losses within the holding companies

• WPP brings in McKinsey to help turnaround the group

• Omnicom/IPG making significant job cuts

• Retirement of DDB, FCB and MullenLowe within Omnicom/IPG

Strong M&A activity in the sector, with a flurry of deals announced last week

• IT services - Infinum acquiring cybersecurity consulting firm AMR

• Social - Social Element joining MarketFully Group

• Experiential - First acquired by Encore

• Experiential - Havas acquires Bearded Kitten

• Experiential - 2Heads acquired by Spiro 

• Tech - Bending Spoons acquires Eventbrite

• Tech - Accenture invests in Wevo

• Tech - Anthropic acquires Bun

Entrepreneurship is alive and there is a new breed of agency/consultancy winning

• A new category of AI driven business and marketing consultancies are emerging

• Ex-employees of Google, Meta and the advertising holding companies, many of which have been made redundant, have launched their own companies

• Some smaller, independent agencies have managed to adapt and re-position themselves, and they are winning work from the big agency groups and consultancies

“Distressed assets are everywhere”

• Despite many seeing a more positive picture for 2026, there are still too many agencies, and a large number struggling with profitability and debt

• Consolidation is inevitable, and ideally reinvention of propositions and business models / structures.
  
  

If you’re looking to invest for growth, either through M&A or internal capabilities around marketing and AI, get in touch with us at hello@bluhalo.com.