The process of horizontality in which WPP is immersed led it to eliminate the plots of its public relations area with the merger between Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe a few weeks ago.
The birth of Burson Cohn & Wolfe marks the beginning of a new era as a “challenging brand”, capable of competing side by side for leadership of the sector with Weber Shandwick and Edelman, as its new CEO, Donna Imperato, assured in an interview with The Holmes Report.
The head of this new agency has recognised that the merger of both firms has led to a change in culture and mentality more evident in Cohn & Wolfe than in Burson-Marsteller. Not in vain, she argues that, sooner or later, the integration of brands will be the way forward in the future, given that “clients want an agency that can generate ideas that work on multiple platforms and multiple channels”.
In other words, communication agencies have to be increasingly multidisciplinary. “We need to have experts who know how all platforms and channels work, even if we do not have all the internal execution capabilities”, concludes Imperato in this respect.