Merkle, Dentsu’s customer-experience-management agency, has absorbed Gyro and Merkle DWA, as the company continues the integration of its portfolio of B2B agencies into Merkle B2B. In Singapore, Merkle B2B will be headed by Rhys Taylor, who has led the Asia Pacific offices of Gyro since 2020.
The move marks the continued integration of Dentsu and Merkle in APAC. For example, in January 2021, Dentsu said it would consolidate in Australia, folding Amicus Digital, Davanti Australia, DWA and Gyro into Merkle Australia, making the brand the network’s go-to-market brand for Salesforce CXM solutions, along with B2B marketing capabilities.
Meanwhile, Accordant, Dentsu’s data-driven customer-experience consultancy, would integrate into Isobar to form a specialist Adobe practice, underpinned by creative, marketing and technology services, Dentsu had announced. Later that year in June Dentsu Australia said it was folding digital experience agency Isobar into a consolidated customer experience practice (CX) under the Merkle brand, while its creative team would move under BWM.
Since the launch of Merkle B2B in September, Merkle DWA, Merkle’s specialist B2B media agency, and Gyro, its specialist B2B creative agency, have been working in increasingly integrated fashion, according to the company. Dentsu acquired DWA and Gyro in 2016 and 2017, respectively, forming two fifths of the full Merkle B2B group, which also includes Merkle, B2B International, and Digital Pi.
In APAC, the business has grown by some 30% in the past 12 months, and Merkle B2B has won more than 25 global marketing and creative awards, according to the company. These wins include recent recognition as the Southeast Asia B2B Marketing Agency of the Year (Silver) at Campaign Asia-Pacific’s Agency of the Year Awards 2021.
“Following 18 months of working together and developing new solutions to meet the changing needs of our existing B2B clients, we’re excited to formalise this integration and show the market what the future of B2B marketing looks like through the Merkle B2B brand,” Taylor said in a release.
Kiaran Geen, APAC president of Merkle B2B, said this integration would bring together the group’s full-service offering to clients to “completely transform modern customer experiences”.
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific
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