WPP buys creative and CX agency New Commercial Arts

NCA was established in 2020 by a team of eight founders and employs around 90 people in offices in London’s Fitzrovia and Glasgow’s Merchant City.

Two of its co-founders, James Murphy and David Golding, founded ad agency Adam&Eve in 2008, while another co-founder, Rob Curran, was previously chief experience officer at Wunderman Thompson.

NCA offers brand and customer experience services. Clients have included Sainsbury’s and Moneysupermarket.

Murphy takes up the role of UK chief executive at Ogilvy following the acquisition, leading both NCA and Ogilvy UK.

Fiona Gordon, who has been chief executive of Ogilvy since 2021, has been promoted to global chief executive of advertising, reporting to Ogilvy global chief executive Devika Bulchandani.

WPP said the deal would "further accelerate momentum" in the UK market. The financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

The deal marks WPP’s first acquisition since it bought a minority stake in German digital agency Oh-So Digital in February of this year.

Mark Read, chief executive, WPP (pictured), said: “NCA is one of the UK’s most exciting new agencies with a great team, an impressive roster of clients and a track record of elevating beloved British brands. Its capabilities and client base make NCA highly complementary to Ogilvy; bringing together these two very successful agencies will drive growth both for our clients and our own UK business.”

James Murphy, co-founder and chief executive, NCA and incoming chief executive, Ogilvy Group UK, said: “Plugging into Ogilvy and WPP’s network will give us access to data and AI tools at scale through WPP Open and to a broad set of Ogilvy capabilities that were simply out of our reach as an independent – from influencer marketing, PR, CRM, commerce and service design to business transformation and brand innovation through Ogilvy Consulting.”