The & Partnership and MSix & Partners merge to form full-service shop

The & Partnership is merging with sister media shop MSix & Partners to create a full-service agency called T&Pm.

The new agency, whose name is pronounced "T and P to the power of M" (in the logo, the m is in superscript), will employ 1,900 people across 45 offices on four continents from next Monday (25 March).

The global management team includes founder and chief executive Johnny Hornby, as well as three partners: Sarah Golding, currently chief executive and partner at The & Partnership; Nick Howarth, currently chief executive and partner at The & Partnership, and Jack Swayne, currently global chief executive at MSix & Partners.

Also on the global management team are the current chief strategy officers at The & Partnership and MSix & Partners, Neil Goodlad and Dan Whitmarsh, who both take the role of chief strategy officer; David Graham and Alex Mowle, who continue as chief financial officer and chief people officer respectively; Christian Hinchcliffe, who remains chief marketing officer; and MSix & Partners executive chair Jess Burley, who takes on the same role at the merged entity.

The agency cited AI as a motivator behind the move and said, in a statement, that the current siloed nature of the industry would limit the technology's adoption. 

T&Pm will confirm its regional and local management teams later in the spring. 

It plans to recruit a UK chief executive to run the full-service shop, which is likely to be among the biggest agencies in the country. In London, The & Partnership had 502 staff at the end of 2022, while MSix & Partners had 312, according to Campaign’s School Reports.

Hornby said: “Looking back, I’m not sure whose idea it was for our industry to separate creative and media agencies, but I’m sure the motives were more profit- than client-driven. If that separation ever made any sense, it certainly doesn’t today. Modern brands need to connect the dots, brilliant creative thinking can’t be divorced from the smart media systems that bring it to life, all of which can now be personalised at scale by breakthroughs in AI.

“AI’s power really is at a pivot point for our industry but it will only be harnessed by a much more holistic approach. Combining our unique model with WPP’s £250m annual AI investment means T&Pm will be well placed to help our clients seize this opportunity.”

Around 60% of the combined entities’ clients already work with The & Partnership and MSix & Partners. For example, the agencies deliver creative, strategy, media, customer, content and social for Toyota and News Corp across the world.

T&Pm describes itself as having AI "at its heart". The agencies have integrated the technology into operational, strategic, creative, production, media and audience tasks and used it with clients, including The Coca-Cola Company, as part of OpenX and Mars. 

It is far from the first name change for the businesses. Hornby, Simon Clemmow and Charles Inge launched Clemmow Hornby Inge in 2001. It became CHI & Partners after they sold a 49.9% stake to WPP in 2007 and rebranded as The & Partnership in 2018.

CHI & Partners Media launched in 2008 with the backing of WPP and rebranded as MCHI in 2009 as a full-service (planning and buying) media agency. It became M/SIX in 2012 and MSix & Partners in 2022.

WPP owns 71.1% of The & Partnership Group through two minority holdings – the 49.9% in The & Partnership and then an additional minority stake in MSix & Partners. As neither of WPP’s stakes is majority, the partners have control of the businesses.