[Industry Update] 22feet in Talks with Omnicon India for a Possible Acquisition

22feet, an independent digital solutions provider with offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, is reported to be in talks with Omnicon India for an acquisition deal.

Managed by four partners, Brijesh Jacob, Madhukar Kamath, Vineet Gupta and Vinod Moolacherry, 22feet has been in the Indian digital industry since 2009 and has handled clients such as Royal Enfield, Fastrack, Kingfisher, Axe, Redbull, Nike amongst many others.

The exact details of the deal are yet to be revealed though.

End of Road for Tribal DDB

Economic Times reported that this deal would mean the end of road for Tribal DDB which is the digital arm of DDB Mudra Group (owned by the Omnicom Group) in India. The Indian digital operations will now be led by 22feet entirely.

Although it is unclear on what the fate of Tribal DDB's employees will be.

What This Means for the Indian Digital Scenario

This acquisition follows the trend of bigger agencies acquiring smaller ones such as that of Dentsu's acquisition of Webchutney and the acquisition of Beehive Communications by Publicis Groupe. As Ahmed Naqvi, cofounder of Gozoop, which recently acquired Red Digital shared with us:

The agencies that are being bought over are happy to align with a larger agency in light of an increasingly competitive environment. The agencies that aren’t evolving will die a natural death. Consolidation is a natural and needed process

The period of consolidation is becoming prominent in the Indian ecosystem now more than ever and we can only expect more such acquisitions in the future.