Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide is on the move. As part of parent company Ogilvy’s overhaul and consolidation of its business units, pharma and healthcare agency CommonHealth will become part of a new umbrella unit.
Ogilvy parent holding company WPP Group will oversee the company, which will be called WPP Health & Wellness. Ogilvy CommonHealth is ranked as the sixth largest U.S. healthcare agency network by Advertising Age last year with revenue of more than $155 million.
Matt Giergerich, the current chairman and CEO of Ogilvy CommonHealth, will retire in the coming months, while other leaders of CommonHealth, including managing partners Darlene Dobry, Michael Parisi, Shaun Urban, and Marc Weiner will take on executive and managerial responsibilities at WPP Health & Wellness, John Seifert, Ogilvy worldwide chairman and global CEO, said in a statement.
"It is an exciting time at Ogilvy as we transform the business into a connected organization comprised of modern marketing experts who put clients at the center of everything that we do,” he said, adding that the new company and leadership will be formally announced "in the near future."
Ogilvy’s pharma and healthcare agencies weren’t the only ones affected in the bigger shakeup. Independent business units and agency sub-brands like OgilvyOne, Ogilvy Public Relations and even Ogilvy & Mather are all being pulled back into one P&L under the new brand Ogilvy USA.
Consolidation has been occuring at other large agencies with trickle-down effects to healthcare and pharma agency groups as well. Publicis Groupe did something similar at the end of 2015 when it consolidated into four hubs: Publicis Communications, Publicis Media, Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Healthcare. That move was meant to break down barriers between agency brands and offer more integrated services to clients.
Editor's Note: The story has been edited to reflect that the Ogilvy Commonhealth brand will not disappear, but move to a company brand under WPP Health & Wellness.