Why Australia's Ad Bodies Are Out of Sync With Their Members

Australia's five biggest advertising groups all do the same things now. Creative. Media buying. Data. Technology. Public relations. They have folded everything under one roof.

But the two main industry bodies that represent them? Still split. One for creative agencies. One for media agencies. A division that made sense 20 years ago.

That gap became very public at Mumbrella360 in Sydney on May 28, 2026, when all five holding company CEOs shared a stage together for the first time.

The Merger Call That Divided the Room

Omnicom Oceania CEO Nick Garrett did not mince words. He called on the Advertising Council Australia (the ACA, which mainly represents creative agencies) and the Media Federation of Australia (the MFA, which mainly represents media buying agencies) to come together.

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"We just need to make our lives a lot simpler and come together," Garrett said. He went further, arguing that both bodies are "becoming an increasingly small part of our clients' needs." That is a direct shot at their relevance, not just their structure.

His position has commercial weight behind it. Omnicom completed its US$13.5 billion acquisition of IPG in November 2025, making it the world's largest advertising group. Garrett runs its Australian and New Zealand operations, having unified Omnicom's media, creative, PR, and performance marketing businesses under a single structure.

The Man Who Opposed the Merger Chairs Both Bodies

The pushback came quickly, and from a notable source. Publicis Groupe ANZ CEO Michael Rebelo argued the two bodies "do very different things for the different sectors of the industry." He said there are "bigger things the industry needs to resolve" than whether to merge them.

What Rebelo did not address directly: he chairs the ACA and also sits on the MFA's board. He is simultaneously the main defender of the status quo and the person with the most to lose institutionally from a structural shake-up. That is a real conflict of interest, even if his arguments about specialist expertise have merit.

New Zealand Already Solved This Problem

Dentsu ANZ CEO Rob Harvey offered the clearest counterpoint. He commutes between Auckland and Sydney and has operated under both the Australian split system and the New Zealand unified model.

New Zealand's Commercial Communications Council represents both creative and media agencies under a single body. It covers over 70 agencies, accounts for approximately 95% of New Zealand agency billings, and represents roughly NZ$1 billion in combined member turnover. It has worked for nearly a decade.

Harvey's own company has been through a painful simplification. Dentsu ANZ retired the Carat, iProspect, and Merkle brands in Australia and collapsed them into a single operating model. This came after A$1.1 billion in accumulated losses under a previous strategy that tried to do too many things under too many names. His conclusion was simple: strip away the noise.

Why the Structural Gap Actually Matters

The Australian advertising market grew 5.2% to A$28.9 billion in 2025 and is on track to hit A$30.7 billion in 2026. It is a growing industry with a governance structure designed for a different era.

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There is also evidence the two bodies already collaborate when they need to. In May 2025, the ACA and MFA joined forces with the AANA to launch a shared AI Council of Experts to set marketing AI standards. They also jointly manage Australia's Advertising Industry Labour Agreement with the federal government. The infrastructure for working together exists. What does not exist is the political will to make it permanent.

The ACA has had the same CEO for over 11 years. The MFA has had the same CEO for 13 years. Long-tenure leadership in any institution tends to protect what already exists. A formal merger would require both leaders, and the member organizations behind them, to give something up.

Garrett's call is not the first of its kind. A similar push to unify Australian advertising bodies failed roughly a decade ago. Whether this time proves different likely depends on whether the major holdcos are willing to apply the same internal logic they have used on their own structures to the institutions that are meant to represent them.