What is the Future of Publicis and Omnicom as One Giant?

The thought of two power houses merging together is still surreal to me. How can Publicis and Omnicom become one? For non-marketing people to understand this merger, Forbes said it best "It's like the Yankees and Red Sox merging." The largest advertising agencies are WPP, Interpublic, Omnicom and Publicis. Here are some of the best agencies that Omnicom and Publicis each hold:

Publicis and Omnicom merger via iMediaConnection

    Publicis:
    Digitas
    Razorfish
    Starcom
    Leo Burnett
    Saatchi&Saatchi
    BBH
    Omnicom:
    BBDO
    DDB
    TBWA
    Cone
    Fleishman-Hillard


Perhaps this tells us more about what's going on in the advertising agency that we may currently know. Maybe the two power houses must not be making enough money to sustain themselves. However, this screams capitalism to me. I can't image the internal PR tactic going on to get everybody on board with this merger. What about employees, do they have to be less competitive with their ex-rivals and embrace more collaboration? No longer can they gear up and create innovative competitive pitches because they are fewer competitors. Or perhaps they will focus more on internal competition rather than creating great campaigns for their clients. Since Coca-cola, Pepsi, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile will be all under one roof as stated in Bloomberg. Will these clients eventually turn to smaller advertising agencies because their needs are not being met? What about the leadership style of each parent agency, how will it be aligned throughout. I have too many questions and concern that this is a great topic for debate. It's too early to predict the outcome, but it is going to be a bumpy road. For now, I'll just have to monitor their performance and those of their main competitors. What are your thoughts?

**According to AdAge, Interpublic share rose (4.5% increase today) while Publicis was at 59.40 and Ominicom fell 0.6%

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