• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, January 25, 2018

Agency veteran Matt Seiler has worked on both the creative and media sides of Adland. Now he gets to do both as the new president of brand solutions at the Dentsu Aegis Network.

The appointment reunites Seiler with Nick Brien, who recently joined DAN as CEO of its Americas operations and who brought Seiler abroad for the new brand solutions post.

The duo worked together at Interpublic a few years back when Brien was running that holding company’s media management arm Mediabrands. He initially hired Seiler to run UM as global CEO. Seiler succeeded him as Mediabrands CEO when Brien was tapped to run McCann.

In his new role Seiler is tasked with helping clients optimize all the resources available throughout the Dentsu Aegis Network.

“There are so many assets that are new,” Seiler said of the network, which includes agencies such as Carat, mcgarrybowen, 360i and Merkle, which Dentsu acquired majority control of in 2016 for estimated $1.5 billion.

The network has been one of most acquisitive marketing firms in recent years. According to agency tracker ComVergence, Dentsu was the second most acquisitive company in the marketing sector through the first nine months of 2017. During that time it made 17 M&A deals, including the largest -- blue-infinity, a Swiss-based international digital agency (with a staff of 550) that is being integrated into the Isobar network. Combined, the 17 deals added 2,147 staffers to the holding company. 

In the last two months, the firm has continued the buying spree with the acquisitions of B2B shop DWA and promotions specialist Hello World, both of which are being aligned with Merkle. 

At Mediabrands, Seiler notes, he and his team “never had enough of a hold on content,” to package up with the media offering. Now, he adds, “we have everything in the tool kit to bring to bear,” to help meet client needs. “Which is really fun.”

Before joining IPG, Seiler was North American CEO of Omnicom’s PHD. Earlier he held roles at Omnicom Corporate and BBDO. After leaving Mediabrands in 2016 he joined media and content company Studio71.