After spending more than $900 million to acquire creative production specialists Tag last year, Dentsu has officially brought the agency to Canada, led by chief client officer Andrea Flanders.
When Dentsu announced it was buying London-based Tag last March, it said the deal would provide it with enhanced capabilities to “deliver content at speed and scale across channels, cultures, and regions.”
“In today’s fast-changing consumer economy, brands demand personalized, omnichannel content delivered in real-time and at scale to gain a competitive edge,” said Tag Americas CEO, Toby Codrington in a release announcing the expansion in Canada. “Tag’s powerhouse of exceptional talent, combined with the latest technologies, sets a new standard for creative production excellence in Canada.”
Dentsu said Tag will provide brands and agencies a suite of services, including shoot production, CGI, post-production, virtual production, social media, UX design, digital production, and even language services and packaging.
At the time of the deal, Tag had 2,800 employees across 29 countries, with a “distributed hub” model meaning it operates as an “always-on, end-to-end production partner.”
The acquisition and expansion of Tag reflects the growing demand from marketers to produce more targeted and personalized communications assets across a complex web of channels, platforms, and media that has become much larger and complex in the digital age. Providing “personalization at scale” was a key factor in Dentsu acquiring Tag.
Some brands have responded by taking more of that work in-house, but agency services have also evolved to meet the need: in-housing specialists Oliver has grown for example, and digital creative production was at the heart of Martin Sorrell’s vision for S4. Sorrell’s former holding company WPP has put more focus on its “implementation” agency arm Hogarth. (Here in Canada. WPP hired former Oliver Canada president Dave Carey a year ago, only to see him jump to Sorrell’s Media.Monks later in the year.)
Flanders spent the early part of her career in PR before joining food and beverage creative content agency The Hot Plate, which was acquired by Tag in 2018.
“We’re incredibly excited to welcome Andrea and the entire Tag team in Canada,” said Stephen Kiely, CEO Dentsu Canada. “[T]he Canada expansion contains all the essential components needed to ensure brands’ success in today's competitive marketing landscape. “
