Mangham Gaxiola sells minority stake to Dentsu Aegis as McGarryBowen launches in Singapore
Yu Lin Loh, Ros Tay, Rob Gaxiola, Stephen Mangham, Dick van Motman
Three years after launching, Singapore independent creative agency Mangham Gaxiola has sold a minority stake to Dentsu Aegis Network.
The agency launched by former Ogilvy colleagues Stephen Mangham and Robert Gaxiola in February 2012 is to become part of the Dentsu Aegis family and launch American agency brand McGarryBowen – which Dentsu bought in 2008 – in Singapore.
The new agency will be officially known as manghamgaxiola mcgarrybowen – A Dentsu Aegis Network Company, and means that DAN now has two creative offerings in Singapore – Dentsu being the other.
Mangham and Gaxiola will retain their roles as joint managing partners and will report to Rosalynn Tay, who was appointed CEO of Dentsu Aegis Singapore after regional boss Dick van Motman finalised his Southeast Asia leadership team in February.
Singapore will be McGarryBowen’s second launch in Asia, having opened a Shanghai office 10 months after Mangham Gaxiola started out in early 2012.
Van Motman said in a press statement: “Singapore has developed into a truly regional hub where an increasing number of headquarters are being set up by blue chip multinationals. The presence of two world-class, creative agencies like manghamgaxiola mcgarrybowen and Dentsu will expand our creative offering, building on our commitment and footprint in Singapore and across Southeast Asia.”
Mangham Gaxiola has had an eventful three years, first winning CIMB Bank business from Ogilvy, and soon after entering a legal wrangle with their former employer for allegedly claiming the account during a non-compete period.
CIMB, which was MG’s largest client, brought its retainer deal to an end in January of this year. MG’s clients have included Jiinzu, Beiersdorf, Greenfields, Samsung and Subaru.
Mangham was group chairman of Ogilvy Singapore for more than six years, and left four months after being posted to Indonesia in August 2011. Gaxiola was Ogilvy Singapore’s executive creative director for two years, and left in July 2011.
Gaxiola told Mumbrella this evening: “We are thrilled about this. This is something we’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. It will give us more resources for our existing clients and it also makes us more competitive overall.”
Mangham added: “Now we can bring our clients not only a partnership with a vision, but the solid backing of one of the strongest networks in Asia. This includes a network of media planning, strategic planning, digital solutions, and creative distribution.
McGarryBowen was founded in 2002 by ex-Y&R president John McGarry, his Y&R chief strategy colleague Stewart Owen, and Gordon Bowen, a former Y&R ECD. The agency has offices in New York, Chicago, London and Düsseldorf, as well as in Shanghai and now Singapore.
Clients include Maserati, Staples, Marriott International, JP Morgan, HP, Chevron, Crayola, Wall Street Journal, Disney, Inbev, Verizon Wireless, Burger King and Sears.
The news emerges at the same time that Dentsu Aegis Network changed the CEO of media agency Carat in Indonesia, and launched media investment arm Amplifi into the market.
Well done lads. Your reception will probably need to rehearse that name a few times before choking on it.
ReplyWith the recent news of start ups and small consultancies folding up, this is indeed refreshing news.
ReplyEvery shop dreams of getting a steroid boost with a big network partner.
Some have been on the shelf for years.
MGMB (is that the correct name?) actually did it.
Kudos lads and lassies, you did what many couldn’t.
Clearly you must be doing something very right.
Not one singapore ad startup has delivered on the promise of its multi award winning partner/s…reason being they have had to revert to doing real work and that reveals who’s got no clothes on.
They operate from a position of fear and that is hop environment to do great work in. Great work requires guts and talent…none of them have shown either…all they are good at is undercutting the MNCs.
ReplyHow true Truth. We’re starting extensive training sessions next week.
ReplyEh please, stop trying to bring the real work/fake work argument into every discussion. It’s getting tiring.
Reply@huh?
ReplyIt may be tiring to you but I am glad @Upstarts brought it up.
This kinda separates the men from the boys.
Correction- Men who get nice capital injections from networks, from the boys who are still living off their scam reps.
I saw some of the work on manghamgaxiola.com and I fail to see how agencies like this get written about….if you have to devote a section in your site to a street cat then something isnt quite right.
ReplyUhhh. I think the lack of local startups/or even the lack of startups is due to the intense competition in a very small local market. At a startup level it’s more about how you do business than whether your work is good or great. I really don’t think the scam argument applies here. You’d be kidding if you think those guys who just got bought over have never done scam. Please, they were from Ogilvy.
ReplyAll Im saying is that when a ECD gets famous and highly regarded on the basis of scam, things are going to unravel pretty fast. That is why the scam argument is very relevant here.
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