LEO BURNETT’S acquisition of the Larkin Partnership continues a trend of recent years whereby locally-owned advertising agencies and media buying houses have come under the control of a large international agency.
Founder Martin Larkin candidly admitted to me yesterday that his decision to sell the 15-year-old business was based on a realisation that he had probably taken it as far as he could as an independent agency.
“For the most part it was,” he said. “The only major agency still [100 per cent] Irish owned is AFA/McConnells but even it has a relationship with Lowe [worldwide] in London.”
Larkin, whose clients include Dublin-based value retailer Penneys, the GAA and the Irish Daily Star, said there is a growing need to achieve scale in a business where meeting the needs of multinational clients is increasingly the name of the game. For example, Leo Burnett holds the UK account for Kellogg’s snack bars.
“There is perhaps an opportunity for a small [Irish-owned] boutique-type agency with a highly-skilled creative operation but the problem is that there are too few domestic brands [to make it work],” Larkin said.
Not that the newly-enlarged Leo Burnett will be without Irish owners. About 40 per cent of the Dublin-based advertising group is held by managing director Shane McGonigle, Larkin and one other director at the company.
This, in itself, is something of a unique structure within the Leo Burnett global family, which is part of the worldwide Publicis advertising and media buying empire.
“That’s unique to the Irish business,” McGonigle said, adding that the parent group tends to own 100 per cent of its affiliates around the world.
Larkin, who has also worked on behalf of Fianna Fáil for many years, will be chairman of the enlarged Leo Burnett operation here but says he will not be taking a back seat.
“No, I’ll be going to work every day,” he told me over a coffee in the Westin Hotel. “I’ll be working with clients and trying to win new business. We’re in the premier league now and we want to cultivate and grow the business.”
