Wunderman Thompson is a
New York-based global marketing communications agency with 200 offices in 90 markets. It is part of international advertising group
WPP Group
WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was the world's largest advertising company, as of 2019. WPP plc owns many compan ...
(). Wunderman Thompson was formed in 2018, when parent WPP merged agencies
J. Walter Thompson
J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merge ...
and
Wunderman
Wunderman was a New York City-based global digital agency. It was part of Young & Rubicam Brands and a member of international advertising group WPP Group ().
On November 26, 2018, WPP announced it was merging Wunderman with the world's oldest ...
.
History
J. Walter Thompson
J. Walter Thompson was founded in 1864 by
James Walter Thompson
James Walter Thompson (October 28, 1847 – October 16, 1928) was the founder of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and a pioneer of many advertising techniques.
Biography
He was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on October 28, 1847.
In ...
and traces its origins to the Carlton & Smith agency, one of the first known advertising agencies in the United States.
J. Walter Thompson was acquired by WPP in 1987.
Wunderman
In 1958, direct marketer
Lester Wunderman
Lester Wunderman (June 22, 1920 – January 9, 2019) was an American advertising executive widely considered the creator of modern-day direct marketing. His innovations included the magazine subscription card, the toll-free 1-800 number, loyalty ...
, alongside his brother Irving Wunderman, and colleagues Ed Ricotta and Harry Kline, opened Wunderman, Ricotta & Klein (WRK).
Founder Lester Wunderman is widely considered to be the creator of modern-day
Marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
—a term he first used in 1961.
[
In 2000, the firm became part of WPP's $5.7B acquisition of parent ]Young and Rubicam
VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...
.[
In 2013, WPP acquired the ecommerce consultancy Salmon.
]
Post merger (2019present)
In 2018, WPP merged Wunderman with J. Walter Thompson Co., and in the first quarter of 2019, unveiled its new identity as Wunderman Thompson.[
In June 2021, Wunderman Thompson won the Innovation Lions Grand Prix at the 2021-2022 ]Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (formerly the International Advertising Festival) is a global event for those working in creative communications, advertising, and related fields. It is considered the largest gathering of the ...
for Degree Inclusive deodorant.metaverse
In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usa ...
at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show, showing how virtual and physical worlds can converge.
In July, the company's Wunderman Thompson Health division created a smallpox simulator for smallpox medication maker Meridian, to help governments plan for future infectious disease outbreaks.
Notable clients
The company's notable clients include financial company HSBC, Rolex
Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...
, Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
, Shell Oil Company
Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,0 ...
, the US Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through com ...
, Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
, British Telecom, Unilever
Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since ...
.
Notable campaigns
Some of the agency's notable campaigns include:
*Bose
Bose may refer to:
* Bose (crater), a lunar crater
* ''Bose'' (film), a 2004 Indian Tamil film starring Srikanth and Sneha
* Bose (surname), a surname (and list of people with the name)
* Bose, Italy, a ''frazioni'' in Magnano, Province of Biella ...
's noise cancelling headphones during quarantine
* Burger King's social distancing Whopper
*The International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
's (ICRC) custom gaming mode with video game Fortnite
''Fortnite'' is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: ''Fortnite Battle Royale'', a free-to- ...
*"Snap out of it" and "Have a Bite" for Nestlé's KitKat
Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom, and is now produced globally by Nestlé (which acquired Rowntree's in 1988), except in the United S ...
candy
*Degree Inclusive deodorant for people with disabilities[
*WaterLight, a device that converts salt water into electricity
* Hellmann’s Mayonnaise tips on how to avoid food waste
]
Inspiring Growth
Wunderman Thompson issues a global brand study called "Inspiring Growth", which ranks the most inspiring brands in the world, using data from WPP's proprietary BAV dataset.[
]
References
{{WPP
Advertising agencies based in New York City
American companies established in 2018