The Atomic 212 acquisition, announced to staff this morning, includes a four-year earnout for Atomic’s dozen or so leadership team who own equity but will remain an independent operation inside the Publicis Media unit, which houses Spark Foundry, Zenith and Starcom. 

The Publicis deal caps more than eight months of feverish conjecture over a possible Accenture acquisition of Atomic 212 to fast-start its media buying and planning ambitions across Asia-Pacific. 

Atomic 212 executive chairman Barry O’Brien did not directly confirm the Accenture discussions but conceded there had been approaches from beyond Publicis: “Yeah, from time to time we had people knocking on our door,” he told Mi3. “This one was probably one of the better processes to go through. They were very buttoned down. Their M&A team is world class."

Accenture has since said it will build from the ground-up although Matt Michael, the new ANZ head of Accenture’s Droga5, rebadged from The Monkeys, told Mi3 he wouldn’t rule out a future media agency acquisition. Accenture is understood to remain in the running for the Optus media review, currently held by IPG Mediabrands’ UM. 

The Atomic deal is effectively O’Brien’s third media agency brand start-up in the Australian market, having sold Total Media to Clemenger 20 years ago, which then became the local spearhead to launch Omnicom Media Group’s global agency brand, PHD, in 2007. 

Rebelo and O’Brien would not be drawn on the acquisition price but based on Atomic’s $265m in annual media billings and revenues of circa $35m, industry estimates put the deal between $35m and $50m. 

Publicis ANZ Group CEO Mike Rebelo said discussions started with O’Brien in January 2024 and by mid-year he had taken the acquisition proposal and strategy to global. “We’ve been working on our strategic plan since then,” he said. 

Atomic had beaten Publicis Media units in several competitive blue chip media contracts despite being a local independent without the vast resources of a global group. Atomic’s key clients include BMW, Bluescope, Salesforce, Bupa, Origin Energy, Chinese automaker GWM and Tourism NT. O'Brien said key clients had been briefed on Publicis' acquisition. "They could see the upside for them - and for us - they were delighted," he said.

Rebelo said Atomic would retain it’s brand and operations.

"The last thing I'm going to do is acquire Australia's fastest growing media agency and tell them what to do. So it's got complete empowerment from the group to continue to do what it's been doing."

The Atomic acquisition is the latest in a series of diversified deals by Publicis in the region. Over the past decade, the company has acquired several agencies, including media agency Match – now part of Spark Foundry, with Publicis paying an estimated $60m-plus for the business in 2015. Others, such as Mercerbell, Balance Internet, MBM Media, and Affinity ID, were acquired to broaden the holdco's services with specialist capability across digital, CRM and e-commerce.

Per Rebelo, unifying those specialisms across client brands is the "formula for growth".

“We want them to be the weapons in the market—through product, through people, through culture."

Bull view

Rebelo said Publicis remains bullish on the media sector and future of media agencies – or at least his.

“If you were sitting in any other holding company or group, you probably would have a different view to us. If you look at what clients need in the future, it's going to come through scale and intelligence. If we know we're adding more scale here, we're adding more intelligence through data and the analytics smarts that both of us [Publicis and Atomic] hold – that's going to only enhance our ability to provide more relevant solutions to clients in both media and across the board."

At a market level, Rebelo said Publicis Media had jumped two places to third in marketshare terms. 

Survival instincts

The Atomic deal is a material turnaround from the “dark days” of six or seven years ago when it was embroiled in controversy with a former partner which had rivals predicting the end of the company. 

“They were pretty dark days, both physically, mentally, health wise, it was pretty full on,” O’Brien said. “But we corralled, did what we had to do and eventually we started winning. We started getting the business in tune not only externally but also internally. We laid off the PR there for quite some time. We laid off the awards for a long time until we started to get the culture and the offering right".

Rebelo nodded to Atomic’s turnaround.

“I guess a lot of other agencies would have crumbled after that – what it showed me as an agency leader was that this is really a strong business. You've got some really, really professional operators there who have really strong client relationships … To then not just survive, but go on to be the best and biggest media independent you have to say, wow, this is something special here".

AI – and human – growth

The acquisition comes as Publicis continues to invest in the global CoreAI platform, being built by its Sapient tech unit and designed to transform the company's operations and service offerings. The platform unifies Publicis' data resources, including a claimed 2.3 billion consumer profiles and trillions of data points on content, media, and business performance.

Rebelo sees CoreAI as a crucial differentiator in the market: "If we know we're adding more scale here, we're adding more intelligence through data and the analytics smarts that both of us hold – that's going to only enhance our ability to provide more relevant solutions to clients in both media and across the board".

O'Brien’s view from Atomic was upside for business resource, plus people and career opportunities.

“Our data and technology offering is very solid – the fact that we could back end into a broader offering was quite attractive – the AI offering, but also the broader base in terms of global connection, and also for our people, not only in Australia, but internationally. So our people can go so far now. If they want to tap into the broader group, there's an opportunity for them – and likewise for the clients."