WPP has acquired New Commercial Arts (NCA), a UK independent creative and customer experience agency that will become part of the Ogilvy global creative network.
NCA was founded in 2020 and, per WPP, is of the fastest-growing agencies in the UK. It was formed by industry veterans including James Murphy and David Golding.
The agency has worked with clients including Sainsbury’s, MoneySuperMarket, Vodafone, Nando’s, Paramount+, Alzheimer’s Society and Cityfibre.
Murphy and Golding previously founded Adam&Eve, now one the most influential agencies in the UK.
NCA employs approximately 90 people and is currently based in London and Glasgow, in partnership with the Glasgow School of Art
As part of the deal Murphy will lead both Ogilvy UK and NCA as CEO Ogilvy Group UK. This marks a return to Ogilvy for Murphy who began his career with the agency.
He succeeds Fiona Gordon, who has been promoted to Global CEO of Advertising at Ogilvy. In this new role Gordon will report to Ogilvy Global CEO Devika Bulchandani, working closely with Global Chief Creative Officer Liz Taylor and Ogilvy’s Worldwide Creative Council.
Mark Read, CEO of WPP, said: “NCA is one of the UK’s most exciting new agencies with a great team, an impressive roster of clients and a track record of elevating beloved British brands. Its capabilities and client base make NCA highly complementary to Ogilvy.
Murphy added the NCA will now have access “to data and AI tools at scale through WPP Open and to a broad set of Ogilvy capabilities that were simply out of our reach as an independent.”
The agency currently has capabilities that span advertising, customer experience, PR, influencer, design, health and consulting.
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