Here, in the final installment of our Publicis/Omnicom commentary series, Dudley Masters, Account Director of comms and marketing agency, Acumen.

(Catch up on the rest of the series, 'Merger could signal new biz opportunity' and, 'How will the merger affect clients?', now).

How would you feel if your choice in marketing agencies became greatly reduced as a result of a surge in agency mergers and acquisitions? That's one of the forecast outcomes of the Publicis Omnicom get together that we are all absorbing at the moment. Will WPP be happy as number 2 in the World or add further to its agency network (possibly more specialist shops)?

And what of the many other agency groups who could feel threatened by the possible size gains, especially in technology affordability, offered by this type of merger?

It could mean that independent, mid-sized marketing agencies just won't be around in the future!

But does that really matter? Most big agency groups are already an assembly of semi-independent brands and operating units embracing conventional marketing agencies, consumer insight companies, online marketing and direct marketing specialists to name just some, that have been accumulated over the years.

So what could be the 'sell' this time?

Leverage, technology and leading edge skills

This merger will have been driven by lots of issues unknown to us - maybe to do with cost savings or fear of the rise of the US technology giants, but those which will be 'sold' to the market are likely to be the obvious 'client benefit' ones like leverage in media rates negotiation, use of the most effective technology for big-data, instant reporting etc. and universal(?) market presence and expertise.

Less ‘touted’, but now just as important, are the leading edge skills and depth of technical expertise required in the now vastly more complicated world of the inbound and outbound marketing mix. Whether PPC, SEO, social, PR, display, TV and, especially, content marketing and generation are in view, having a broad skill base available to you could be mighty important.

So that's good, isn't it?

But the worries are! Although the arguments in favour look convincing, there may be both industry competition issues and some that could provide a number of practical problems for prospective clients.

Firstly, just suppose that 6 mega marketing agencies finish up controlling 80% of the marketplace through sheer scale, possibly sweeping up many of the smaller specialist suppliers and regional agencies. In that way they could pick up many small clients and then transfer them to bigger group units as these clients grow (a bit like entry level cars from luxury car manufacturers).

Where does that leave scope for the normal evolution and growth of new marketing communication companies to provide a real level of choice and competition?

Second, there are those practical relationship issues for customers when a few market providers simply get too dominant.

Here are just 4 examples of, not so minor, problems that can arise:

1. Junior staff for smaller clients
   The natural process of the most skilled people being channelled to the clients with the greatest income potential or, in a few cases, to clients where a special personal chemistry exists with key agency people or the professional status of working on an innovative or trendy product is great.
2. Conflicts of interest
   The chances of your strategy and programme being devised and implemented under the same roof as one or several of your competitors’ programmes could be considerable.
3. Loss of bargaining power
   The difficult psychology when you know that your agency is a much bigger organisation than your own and that your leverage, in the event of a cost or a poor commitment issue, is not of much consequence to them.
4. Priorities shift
   When you are in specialist b2b markets, a mega agency with a high cost base, may not be able to really justify applying sufficient resources/time to get close enough to your team to achieve that combined resource and common resolve that really drives a programme.

Make your own judgement!

I'm trying to put a balanced viewpoint forward here so that we don't all get swept-up in the ‘positives’ of the Publicis Omnicom merger coverage.

Let’s hope that the way the marketing agency business has (mainly) evolved over the last 50 years, with talented agency creatives, managers and key specialists (maybe now with the addition of a technology guru) breaking away from large groups to set up on their own, will continue into the future.

We need to maintain real and effective choices for clients as the mega agencies continue to get 'assembled'.