“Let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door…
That will be the day when you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising. Our kind of advertising.”
Leo Burnett, 1967

This morning Publicis Groupe announced the merger of Leo Burnett and Publicis Worldwide. After nearly 90 years, Publicis Groupe decided it was in fact time to take Burnett’s surname off the door, and rebrand as “Leo”. The new network “Leo Constellation” references Burnett’s invocation to “reach for the stars”.

This news follows closely on the heels of the Interpublic Group and Omnicom merger, signaling a return to consolidation. But at what cost? While mega-mergers promise efficiency and scale, they risk undermining the core elements that make advertising effective.

Consolidation brings advantages like streamlined operations and better bargaining power. However, larger organizations often become bogged down by bureaucracy, slowing decision-making and stifling creativity in favor of profitability. Leo Burnett’s famous “When to Take My Name Off the Door” speech warned against this exact moment, stressing the importance of maintaining a culture of excellence, originality, and client focus—values that can be lost in the pursuit of corporate growth. As Leo cautioned:

“…When you stop building on strong and vital ideas, and start a routine production line. When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administered, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated, and inspired…”

By contrast, smaller independent agencies are thriving by staying true to the principles Burnett espoused:

Agility: Independent agencies can pivot quickly to accommodate new trends and client needs without being bogged down by red tape.

Client-Centric Focus: Without the pressure to meet quarterly holding company-wide financial demands, these agencies can prioritize client success over short-term profitability.

Creative Freedom: Independence fosters an environment where groundbreaking ideas flourish, unhampered by corporate mandates or layers of bureaucracy.

Today agencies like OWND Ideas Factory are again proving the power of small by allowing creativity and ideas to drive its business.

Consolidation also stifles talent. Large holding companies struggle to foster individual growth and creativity, leaving employees feeling like cogs in a machine, which leads to burnout and turnover. Independent agencies are snapping those brilliant minds up, by offering new authentic opportunities and a stronger sense of ownership.

Of course a merger can yield short-term financial gains, but in order to thrive, the industry must balance scale with creativity. Holding companies should turn their focus to empowering local offices and prioritizing creativity in decision-making. In the meantime, the independent agencies are already filling that creative gap.

Leo Burnett asked for his name to be taken off the door “…when your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big, rather than good, hard, wonderful work.” In the next few months we will see if he’d have insisted on having both of his names removed.