Cheil North America has announced the formation of the Cheil Agency Network (CAN), a North America-based consortium uniting five independently operated agency brands to “offer a more nimble alternative to the traditional holding company model.”
CAN includes McKinney (creative), Iris (creative), Attention Arc (media), CYLNDR Studios (production) and Barbarian (digital and technology), with offices across the United States and Canada.
The company said the Cheil Agency Network offers strategic and creative thinking, data-driven media, and AI-powered production while providing direct access to agency executives and senior teams. The model allows each agency to keep its identity, culture, and specialty while sharing resources, intelligence, and research and development. Clients can work with a single agency, multiple agencies, or a custom team drawn from across the network.
“This model allows each agency to retain their independent identity, ethos, culture, and specialty, while also sharing certain resources, intel and R&D, which is especially crucial in the AI-age,” the company said in a release
Joe Maglio, CEO of McKinney and Barbarian, has been promoted to CEO of the Cheil Agency Network. Leaders of each agency will report to him, and he will be responsible for each agency’s performance and combining specialties to provide client solutions.
The network will have its own staff but operate under an “asset light” model. The team will include Tim Jones as Chief Financial Officer, Sue Roche as Chief People Officer, Bill Mattis as Managing Director, Head of Network Growth, and Lisa Hughes as Head of Network Operations.
“The Cheil Agency Network is the goldilocks of agency groups,” said Maglio.
“We’re able to offer the intelligence and cross-discipline coordination of a holding company while still bringing clients the energy, flexibility and high level of attention and client service that make independent agencies shine. As the advertising industry is going through a period of tremendous structural disruption between holding company M&A and PE investments, this new network model allows us to seamlessly collaborate and deftly adapt so we’re poised to deliver outsized results for brands that want to grow.”
