Omnicom’s mega-merger doubles down on media — at creativity’s expense

The promoting world has reached a second of reckoning. As of late November 2025, Omnicom Group has officially closed its acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG), with revenues exceeding $25 billion. 

The deal triggered a world reorganization: greater than 4,000 jobs lower (some doubtless occurring on the very date of this publication), a number of legacy company names retired and a dramatic reshaping of the company panorama.

The artistic facet of the home is consolidated into three world legacy advert company networks — BBDO, TBWA and McCann. In the meantime, the media practices stay not simply entrance and heart, however of their restructuring, they turn into a media tremendous group of kinds, retaining six flagship networks, together with OMD, PHD, UM, Initiative, Mediahub and Hearts & Science.

This raises a strategic query for 2026: Is a media-heavy working mannequin realistically optimized for the expansion we’re truly seeing in advertising and marketing? Progress that’s been disproportionately powered by earned consideration and creator-led tradition?

Paid interruption should earn consideration by means of creativity

Look no additional than manufacturers like Liquid Dying and Storage Beer for proof that paid media isn’t a prerequisite for model success.

Liquid Dying’s canned-water model launched with a black-market–model voice, merch and a big quantity of social content material that earned consideration by means of controversy. The model depends on artistic that’s deliberately off-putting to some audiences. That strategy has additionally led to unofficial fan-made spec ads, together with an AI-generated video created with Veo 3.

Storage Beer, a scrappy challenger, leaned not on media spend however on neighborhood, finally attracting movie star (soccer stars Jason and Travis Kelce acquired partial possession in 2024, with Jason featured in on-line content material), area of interest cultural affinities (e.g., pro-wrestling pastiche, martial arts-inspired tropes) and a tone of voice that resonated with weekend-warrior man-cave husbands.

These aren’t outliers. Within the final a number of years, a rising class of manufacturers has emerged not with conventional advert budgets, however with communities, creators and earned momentum to spur their development.

Dig deeper: How to craft a strong brand story with strategic copywriting

A number of of the extra outstanding breakout manufacturers of current years ought to have Omnicom leaders questioning in the event that they guess on a really wholesome horse. (Spoiler alert: these are all manufacturers that launched with out a large holding firm media group shopping for their paid interruption media.)

• PRIME Hydration: Creator-owned and constructed on the mixed social attain of its YouTube-star founders. Demand was sparked by means of owned social earlier than retail distribution scaled.
• Feastables: Based by a serious digital creator and launched with creator- and community-first momentum, with minimal reliance on conventional mass media.
• Poppi (prebiotic soda): Steadily cited among the many fastest-growing new beverage brands and pushed primarily by social and viral buzz reasonably than heavy TV budgets.
• OLIPOP (prebiotic soda/tonic-style beverage): A recurring presence on “brands to watch” lists, with early development fueled by social traction, neighborhood engagement and retail seeding reasonably than large-scale media buys.
• GHOST (power drink/supplement-adjacent beverage): A social-native beverage model constructed by means of influencer partnerships and community-driven distribution, not legacy media spend.
• e.l.f. Cosmetics: An extended-standing model whose current acceleration is carefully tied to TikTok-native campaigns, together with short-form content material, trend-hopping, UGC, speedy artistic testing and strategic product drops.

In distinction, different top-selling product launches, significantly from legacy incumbents or massive conglomerates, are inclined to skew paid-heavy, counting on retail distribution muscle, broad media buys and traditional consciousness campaigns. 

Paid stays a crutch to scale, however it’s hardly ever the spark

For a lot of current breakout manufacturers, success started with creativity, neighborhood or creator power, then scaled with paid, not the opposite method round. The newly minted Omnicom is giving a strategic vote to media scale, information, automation and consolidation. From a cost-efficiency and media-leverage standpoint, that is sensible. However from a brand-building, culture-creating perspective, it looks like doubling down on yesterday’s playbook.

• Much less range in artistic voices: Lowering world artistic to a few flagship networks simplifies construction but in addition narrows the variety of high-profile artistic colleges contained in the holding firm. Much less inside artistic competitors may imply fewer high-risk, high-reward concepts that seize tradition. Boutique retailers stay, however they’re now depending on shopper allocation and inside prioritization.
• Media/data-heavy incentives: The reorg locations media, tech and information underneath a consolidated super-group. When incentives skew towards incrementality, ROI and effectivity, reasonably than model lifts and earned velocity, there’s threat for artistic to turn into merely transactional, bottom-of-the-funnel promotion, not transformational, not emotional, not relationship-oriented.
• Cultural relevance over CPMs: The fastest-growing, most talked-about manufacturers as we speak aren’t those with the very best CPM buys, they’re those with one thing to say, one thing to belong to, one thing folks need to share. Omnicom’s construction seems to be optimized for the previous.

In different phrases, Omnicom is setting up a world-class media machine, however at exactly the second when the chance for enormous return lies in earned consideration, tradition creation, neighborhood and artistic threat.

Dig deeper: AI can scale ads, but great creatives drive brand impact

Scale doesn’t create tradition, shopping for doesn’t create buzz — and why that issues now

The concept that manufacturers can obtain breakout success by means of paid media alone is a delusion. In my assessment of 2022-2025 launches throughout drinks, snacks and sweetness, I discovered no compelling instance of a serious breakout model attaining lasting, worthwhile velocity on purely paid media alone, with out some type of neighborhood, creator, earned media or social-first activation.

Against this, many profitable launches have a tendency to start out in social media, then scale by way of paid channels, reasonably than the opposite method round. Scale and tradition aren’t interchangeable. Shopping for attain doesn’t create relevance. Media can amplify a narrative, however it can not manufacture one.

Omnicom’s merger with IPG is undoubtedly an influence play, consolidating media leverage, unlocking information and scale economies and creating one of many largest company super-groups the world has ever seen.

However scale alone received’t purchase tradition. Creativity, threat, neighborhood and voice will. If the brand new Omnicom leans too closely on media and information whereas relegating artistic variability to some community banners, it dangers lacking the very engine that’s driving as we speak’s breakout manufacturers.

For model leaders, the lesson is evident: the highest-return investments received’t all the time be the most important media buys. Typically, they’re the boldest concepts, seeded by means of neighborhood, creators and tales folks select to move on — one thing Omnicom appears to have guess in opposition to.

Dig deeper: Unpacking the creative renaissance: How to reignite brand magic