Media Buying Briefing: Why Dentsu Japan and the rest of the holdco just don’t fit well together

So why then would Hiroshi Igarashi, the global CEO of Dentsu – referred to by his subordinates across the globe as Igarashi-san – have said the following after a not-so-great first half 2025 earnings report: “As part of the reevaluation of underperforming businesses, we will explore and implement strategic alternatives including comprehensive andstrategic partnerships, aiming to enhance corporate value by proceeding.”

Though he didn’t specifically say “selling non-Japanese assets” in the form of the former Aegis agencies that Dentsu acquired in early 2013, most of the analyst world interpreted it as hanging up a for-sale sign, especially at this pivotal juncture in holdco history. After all, Omnicom is about to close its acquisition of IPG, Havas has been spun out from Vivendi and partnered with Horizon Media, and WPP is trying to stave off a further downward spiral under new leadership (so far it hasn’t). 

In other words, not a great time to cast into doubt your commitment to the majority of your agency holdings outside of the Japanese mothership that dominates in its own market.

“Dentsu has always been unpredictable from a global point of view,” said Ruben Schreurs, who runs Ebiquity and is a longtime observer of the agency scene. “Right now, the Dentsu International organization is operated so separately and distinctly from its parent company that … it’s pretty clear they are in market with their international assets.”

One internal Dentsu exec, speaking on the condition of anonymity, pushed back on Schreurs’ point, arguing that clients don’t see the international assets as one monolithic brand. “Don’t misconstrue internationally that the clients are buying Dentsu — they don’t buy Dentsu,” said the insider. “They buy through the brands, and in media, Carat, iPro and Dentsu X are doing fine … [Clients] need to know that there’s stability in those brands regardless of what happens.”

Still, something remains amiss. For Schreurs, the first hint of corporate misalignment within Dentsu was the surprise dismissal of Wendy Clark as head of Dentsu International in late 2022. “My personal view on this has always been that the purchase of Aegis was out of the norm for Dentsu, and the performance of that asset as part of the group doesn’t warrant full integration,” he said. “It reminds me so much of the Wendy Clark dismissal, which was completely unexpected, and by all accounts, was a highly unilateral decision from [the] head office in Japan to consolidate or try and bring in international more into the fold, which clearly hasn’t succeeded to the extent they wanted it to.” Clark held the role for less than three years before her role was restructured out of existence.

For all the talk of culture among agencies and holdcos, culture is exactly the root of the problem. “I think it’s a really strong cultural reason,” said Schreurs. “Dentsu [has] more than a century old culture and country-defining entity in Japan. This move into trying to have the international footprint as a media agency right now clearly isn’t part of their strategy.”

That internal disconnect has led to a higher-than-normal turnover in management outside the mothership that’s continued since Clark was asked to leave. Part of it is just the momentum of turnover — some leave because they’re tired of seeing others leave, as has been hinted as the reason for Leah Meranus’ departure from North American CEO of Dentsu X to independent PMG earlier in the year. Others leave because they see opportunity elsewhere as was likely the case with Michael Komasinski, who left his CEO of Dentsu Americas role to take over ad-tech firm Criteo, or Jacki Kelley, who left for a top client-centric position with IPG. Kelley’s replacement as head of client relations, Jeff Greenspoon, just left in August to become Americas CEO at Kantar. 

But there’s also the case of Igarashi harboring expectations to match the mothership’s stranglehold in Japan. It’s no secret Dentsu controls the the majority of the buy- and sell-sides of that market. That monopoly can never be matched in most of the rest of the world, but that didn’t stop management from expecting it to some degree.

One former Dentsu exec, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to share their experiences, recounted how top Dentsu leaders in Japan wouldn’t allow Dentsu in the U.S. to offer the types of incentives other holdcos make to win big-ticket clients, from principal media to lower-margin rates. “I don’t know if they were just hoping that at some point the halo that they wear in Japan would eventually translate to a halo that they could wear in the U.S.,” said the exec. “The requests for either margin relief or all the kinds of added-value things that the big guys offer to close those deals, Japan would not approve any of that.”  

That’s ultimately what led to the departure of Doug Rozen in 2023 from his role running Dentsu Media for the Americas (his replacement, Sean Reardon, lasted less than 18 months before leaving to helm Epsilon at Publicis). “Japanese leadership either didn’t understand the realities of operating in the U.S. market, or they didn’t want to understand, or didn’t want to believe what they probably knew to be true,” said the exec. “In Japan, Dentsu is Louis Vuitton. It never goes on sale, it’s premium priced. In the U.S., Dentsu is Macy’s. There’s nothing wrong with being Macy’s — everybody needs some new towels every once in a while, right? But Macy’s is not Louis Vuitton.”

So what will ultimately happen to Dentsu outside of Japan? The internal source said most likely nothing until 2026 rolls around, so Igarashi-san and team can assess where those businesses stand. After that, if it’s not up to Japanese standards, there could be a lot of agencies available to buy.

Dentsu formally declined to comment for this story.

Color by numbers

As clients begin to assess their media spend budgets for 2026, analysts are offering their predictions of what the market should expect. Forrester issued its predictions in a number of areas around marketing and media, including: 

• Google’s restructuring will drive a 25% surge in adtech M&A activity.  Forrester predicts that “a forced restructuring of Google Ad Manager, including the divestment of its ad exchange, will fundamentally change the adtech market — creating new opportunities for adtech vendors to compete with a leaner Google.” 
• Consumer trust in generative AI for high-risk use cases will grow to 30%. Forrester’s report notes that currently, consumer trust in AI tools May be high for tasks like language translation, but it’s only 14% across Australian, U.K., and U.S. online adults for things like self-driving cars. 
• 90% of consumers who use genAI will help monetize it — without realizing. According to Forrester, generative AI usage is growing 2% to 11% year over year globally. The firm predicts that “In 2026, more people will upgrade to genAI tools’ premium plans to unlock features and increase usage limits, but the remaining users will indirectly generate revenue for genAI services and systems, too.”

Takeoff & landing

• Publicis continued its acquisition spree to beef up resources in the creator/influencer space, the latest acquisition coming in Singapore, where it bough HEPMIL Media Group, an influencer agency that partners with 3,000 creators across Southeast Asia.
• Globant consolidated all its marketing and advertising disciplines under the newly formed GUT Network, offering capabilities across AI, digital marketing, consumer experience, social, content, media, martech and data analytics. This comes two years after Globant acquired GUT. 
• Personnel moves: Innocean tapped its first ever female global CEO in Jung A. Kim, who most recently was chief creative officer for Innocean Korea (she’s also the first creative exec to take the top role). Kim replaces William Lee, who will stick around as senior advisor during the transition … MiQ hired Jordan Bitterman to be its new CMO, having run his own consultancy for the last 18 months but was the former CMO of TripleLift and The Weather Co. … TV measurement firm iSpot hired Julie Van Ullen to be its president and CRO, coming over from a CRO position at Rakuten Rewards.

Direct quote

“We’re really pretty heavily invested into Meta properties. But we understand the value of TikTok and the opportunity that presents, so we definitely want to have some visibility there. You would be surprised at the age demo that presents on TikTok as well — it is skewing a little bit older — and [the campaign] launched pretty well with not only our core audience, but the aspirational buyers” 

—Tim Sumter, creative marketing & social media manager at BMW, discussing the carmaker’s use of TikTok for a recent campaign supporting its pre-owned auto business, despite uncertainty over the platform’s future.

Speed reading

• Seb Joseph takes his usual 10,000-foot view of the real reason agencies might be losing clients — it’s the talent, stupid. 
• Sam Bradley cataloged just how rough a quarter (and year) WPP has had in its most recent earnings report, which new CEO Cindy Rose deemed “unacceptable.” 
• Bradley and Sara Guaglione teamed up to run down several ways in which agencies and publishers are putting agentic AI to use.