McCann Worldgroup is one of the iconic ad agencies of the 21st century, behind Mastercard’s “Priceless” and L’Oréal’s “Because You’re Worth It.” However, as the media ecosystem evolves, its legacy structure must adapt to support clients moving at the speed of modern marketing.
Since taking the chief executive (CEO) role in 2022, Daryl Lee has been restructuring the business to better serve clients with changing needs.
He has reorganized it into four brands—McCann, production company Craft, brand consultancy Futurebrand, and precision marketing agency MRM—removing silos so clients can access all or parts of the business more easily.
Now, McCann Worldgroup is announcing further changes to reorient talent around clients, according to a memo obtained by ADWEEK on Thursday (May 8).
Speaking with ADWEEK after a town hall where he addressed the changes with staff, Lee said that as AI makes execution cheaper and easier, clients need agencies to provide “strategic creativity.” Meanwhile, services that used to be bundled into AOR contracts, from ideation to execution, are now up for grabs as individual projects.
In response, McCann has invested in senior client leadership while stripping back regional and management roles. These client leaders wear dual hats, also heading up a region or an office. In this set up, “the weight of the strategic and creative resources is towards clients,” Lee said.
As the creative AOR wanes, McCann is investing in project managers as an evolution of the account management function. Whereas account people “typically do the same task over time,” project managers “can manage the complexity of 15 projects at a time across very different things,” Lee said.
While change has been necessary, it’s also been difficult.
Lee confirmed reports of layoffs in the first half of 2025, acknowledging cuts at McCann Detroit after the agency lost Chevrolet. He said the business has cycled through the 2023 loss of Verizon and has “grown in a category that is declining,” with double-digit growth in social and influencer.
As for those who chose to leave McCann on their own recently, “everybody has seen the writing on the wall, and I think some people took the opportunity…to say, ‘I’d like something else.’ And we gave everybody that opportunity,” Lee said.
