Ben Lilley acquires JSA creative, with agency to be absorbed into McCann Brisbane
Ben Lilley has made another acquisition, purchasing Brisbane digital agency JSA Creative, which will be merged immediately into creative agency McCann and public relations agency The Red Republic in Queensland.
The purchase was for an undisclosed sum.
Lilley acquired McCann Australia, which includes The Red Republic, from Interpublic in February, two years after departing as CEO. Not long after he revealed to Mumbrella an aggressive acquisition strategy to make McCann ‘the best creative agency’ in Australia.
In April, Lilley purchased the assets of creative agency Red Engine SCC after the agency entered administration, and rolled it into The Red Republic.
JSA was established in 1991 and holds blue-chip local and national clients including Brisbane City Council, CSIRO, Griffith University, Parmalat, Mater Group and the Queensland and Federal Governments. Its offering spans creative, digital, design, content and social strategy.
JSA’s general manager Carla Steadman and managing director Jeremy Bews
Jeremy Bews, JSA managing director, said joining McCann was an honour and a beautiful next chapter.
“It’s an honour to be joining what I consider to be Australia’s most exciting agency group right now. McCann is the world’s most awarded agency network for both creativity and effectiveness. And I’ve admired how The Red Republic has grown from its Brisbane beginnings into an impressive national player with McCann. Now what a beautiful narrative for the next chapter in the JSA story,” Bews said.
“After 21 years, we’re excited to continue to evolve, prosper and sharpen our integrated brand experiences well into the future with McCann,” he said.
“Our shared values in providing an unwavering commitment to achieving the best possible client outcomes and having access to the most strategic and creative brilliance, made this unification a no-brainer. We also fondly remember McCann Brisbane circa 2009, whose success in attracting Brisbane’s best talent and their uncompromising creativity made them the agency to aspire to. So we’re firmly focussed on enhancing the McCann brand in the local market again.”
General manager, Carla Steadman, said she was excited to begin offering JSA’s services to McCann’s clients.
Lilley said the duo had built a first-rate agency.
“Jeremy and Carla have built a first-rate agency offering, especially in their digital capability and Drupal expertise. They’re also wonderful people with an equally wonderful agency team and culture. I couldn’t be more excited to be welcoming them to our national team.”
Lilley intends to continue growing McCann’s national creative scope and scale by acquiring more agencies in creative, data, design, media, technology and PR across Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland. The arrangement offers independent agency owners the opportunity to gain connections and clients in the international McCann Worldgroup network whilst continuing to operate independently, he said.
“Our strategy is to scale our national suite of best-in-class solutions to best address each clients’ own specific suite of marketing and communications needs,” Lilley said.
This year, McCann has made a number of senior appointments including Ben Coulson as Sydney chief creative officer, Roshni Hegerman as executive strategy director, client services director Simon Gawn, and Caroline McLaughlin as senior business lead.
The Red Republic was acquired by McCann during Lilley’s first stint as CEO in 2016.
McCann declined to comment on the purchase price.
Strong move. Very impressive.
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Never seen a ‘creative agency’ built by acquisition in my entire career. I’ve seen a few destroyed, though. Creativity comes from the soul, not a chequebook.
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Every single global network – which house the most creative agencies in the world – has been built on acquisitions. It’s Business 101 – in every industry in the world.
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JSA’s point of difference is/was that they did good work without overcharging (relative to the bigger agencies, at least).
That competitive advantage is now gone. As a client, why would you pay the same people more for the same work?
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Hi @Cynic. You’re of course welcome to be cynical. However I would point out that as highlighted in this article, McCann Australia is itself an agency that’s in part built on acquisitions, including the acquisition of my previous creative agency SMART in 2011, as well as more recently The Red Republic.
SMART very much retained its ‘soul’ and is still a key part of McCann today, as is The Red Republic which has grown from a local Brisbane agency to a national operation under McCann’s ownership. It was also just 2 years after the SMART acquisition that McCann Australia won its first ever Cannes Lion, under SMART’s ECD John Mescall, and then went on to be named the most creative agency in the world, for campaigns including Dumb Ways to Die, which is in the most awarded campaign in history, and Guilt Trips, which is the only Australian campaign ever to be awarded the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness, among many others. McCann has gone on to win countless Lions and other awards every year since 2011.
So McCann is in fact a perfect example of a “creative agency built by acquisition” and SMART and The Red Republic are perfect examples of agencies that were anything but “destroyed” by acquisition. Worth noting that John Mescall is also now Global Executive Creative Director at McCann in New York, which is a great creative success by any measure.
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Both JSA’s service offering and rate-card remain unchanged, as is the case with all of our acquisitions and all other agency groups’ acquisitions.
Now JSA’s extra ‘point of difference’ is the added benefit of being part of a larger national group and multinational network, on top of its exceptional Brisbane offering.
Their competitive advantage has not ‘gone’, it’s now stronger than ever.
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Surely a price point or deal is missing in this journalism? Or was it acquired with rhetoric, fairy dust and pr pics?
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I really like that you are addressing these comments first hand Ben. Nicely done.
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You’re getting confused with creative agencies acquiring other agencies; like DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi, Ogilvy, BBDO, etc. – all brands built on famous work and still prospering today. Yes, greatly through acquisition – but the right ones. On the other hand, Patts tried to buy creativity (Campaign Palace) Publicis bought Mojo. TBWA bought Whybin. Dentsu bought SSCB not to mention CDP in London. Great successes? Hardly.
Why do they fail? Because they don’t understand agency culture, only the numbers.
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Good response, Ben, but McCann has not been a creative power for many years, that’s why you now own it. You’re very talented and very brave and I wish you well.
But, I wouldn’t be leading with Creativity, especially with VLine, It’s a nice credential but it’s just too old. Good luck.
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The deal?
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Hi there,
We asked the question, however they declined to comment.
We have updated the story so it’s clear it’s an undisclosed sum.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Hi there,
They declined to give us this information. I have updated the story to reflect this.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
They won most effective creative agency of the year at the Effies APAC in 2018?
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Thanks Chris!
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@The Cynic well thank you I guess for the backhanded compliment and the best wishes. While I’m a loathe to get into a tit for tat, I can’t let a comment like “McCann has not been a creative power for many years” pass.
McCann is the world’s most awarded agency by a fair margin, including being named “Global Agency Of The Year” by Adweek, “Network of the Year” by the Cannes Lions, the world’s most creatively-effective marketing services company by the Effie Awards (for three consecutive years), “Global Network of the Year” by Campaign Magazine and “Network of The Year” by The Webby Awards. And while it’s true that in Australia we have not won as many awards in any year since Dumb Ways to Die, neither has any other Australian agency – it remains the most awarded agency in history.
We have however continued to win awards every year since, at the Lions and a gazillion other shows, plus as many Effies. Between Pat Baron as our National CCO in Melbourne and Ben Coulson as CCO in Sydney, we also have two of the most highly awarded agency CCO’s of any Australian network, if not the highest. Awards are not the only measure of creativity sure, but they’re a fair benchmark all the same. So yep, we’re leading with creativity.
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All such deals are bound by strict confidentiality provisions. Their omission is no reflection on the journalism. And the rhetoric, fairy dust and pr pics are just a bonus!
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Good move. I’ve worked with Smart, MCcann and JSA on projects. Jeremy and his team are strong performers in the market here. I’ve often thought it would be good to see McCann back in Brisbane too and welcome the new change.
All my years at Mojo and Leo Burnetts taught me that a strong team culture can create an environment that is fun, creative, doesn’t take itself too seriously and is competitive on the days where it counts.
When you lose a pitch we enjoyed crying into our beer.
When we won a pitch we celebrated with champagne.
I think the acquisition of JSA will continue the traditions of wonderful, crazy business that is advertising.
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