Credit: Jonathan Borba via Unsplash
Management consulting firms have overtaken traditional advertising holding groups as the dominant acquirers of Australian agencies over the past decade, according to analysis by media and marketing research shop COMvergence.
The finding emerges from a study of Australian agency acquisitions which reveals a two-phase consolidation cycle that has redefined what constitutes strategic value in marketing services.
Consultancies accounted for 45% of the 65 deals struck since 2016 against 41% for the global holding groups.
Deal activity peaked in 2021 with 13 transactions, with 12 in 2022, following a steady build from three deals in 2019 to 10 in 2020.
The surge coincided with accelerating demand for cloud transformation, marketing technology integration and e-commerce infrastructure.
The early phase of consolidation, from 2016 to 2018, was largely media, performance and digital craft-driven, with dentsu, Havas and Publicis Groupe strengthening search, programmatic and creative capabilities.
Targets were predominantly local businesses with fewer than 100 staff and revenues under US$10 million.
The character of deals shifted from 2019, when larger platform-oriented businesses entered the frame.
Capgemini's acquisitions of RXP, with 550 staff and revenues of around US$60 million, and Empired, with 1,100 staff and revenues of US$120 million, reset the scale benchmark. Accenture, Deloitte, IBM and KPMG moved aggressively into cloud consultancies, Salesforce specialists and data engineering firms, shifting the strategic intent from campaign capability to infrastructure ownership.
Since 2022, deal volume has normalised — three transactions each in 2023 and 2024, two in 2025 — but the strategic intent remains elevated.
Consulting firms continue targeted capability acquisitions while holding groups selectively defend activation scale, illustrated by Publicis and Havas returning to scaled media assets this year with Publicis's acquisition of Atomic 212°.
Average deal size has increased over the period in both headcount and revenue terms, reflecting growing confidence in Australia as a strategic Asia-Pacific hub.
The analysis says the market now reflects dual-track consolidation: consulting firms building AI- and cloud-enabled operating backbones, while holding companies defend and scale their activation capabilities.
Globally, COMvergence’s ten-year analysis of marcom agency acquisitions reveals a decisive structural shift in the global marketing services industry.
In 2025, 55 marcom acquisitions were completed worldwide, marking a modest increase versus 2024 but remaining well below the 2016 peak.
While deal volume remains structurally lower across the decade, 2025 stands out for a transformational event.
This includes Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG). The transaction adds 53,300 employees and $10.7B in revenue, reshaping global competitive scale and effectively ending the long-standing “Big 6” holding company structure.
Beyond the Omnicom–IPG deal, the market reflects disciplined, capability-led consolidation.
Two-thirds (67%) of agencies / firms acquired in 2025 employed fewer than 100 people, confirming a shift to targeted expertise rather than workforce-driven scale.
Across the 2016–2025 period during which COMvergence tracked 845 agency acquisitions, digital and data represented 64% of all acquisitions and accounted for 57% of total staff added.
Data-led assets continue to grow in strategic importance, particularly those anchored in AI, identity, cloud, and infrastructure platforms. Creative and Media acquisitions remain active but are generally smaller in scale and headcount.
The industry’s transformation is increasingly platform driven.
A total of 20 AI-focused acquisitions were recorded over the decade, with nearly two-thirds completed since 2023.
AI investments remain targeted and specialist in nature. Rather than acquiring large standalone AI businesses, global players are embedding AI talent into broader data and cloud ecosystems.
Control of infrastructure is increasingly emerging as the primary value driver.
The 55 acquisitions completed in 2025 represent an estimated $13.1 billion in combined revenue, of which $10.7B is attributable to the Omnicom/IPG deal.
Infrastructure-led acquisitions demonstrate materially higher revenue-per-employee ratios compared to traditional creative and media businesses. Capital is increasingly flowing toward scalable, recurring-revenue platforms.
Among holding groups, Publicis Groupe and Havas led 2025 in deal volume, each completing 11 acquisitions.
Dentsu and WPP have significantly reduced activity compared to earlier peak years.
Management consultancies continue to expand through cloud, AI, CRM, and enterprise technology acquisitions, reinforcing operating-model ownership rather than agency roll-ups.
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