Hasta La Creative!

A flurry of agency deals and moves in the mid-to-late ’80s put players in place — WPP and Martin Sorrell, now 68; Publicis and Maurice Levy, 71; Omnicom and John Wren, 60 — who would go on to lead the advertising business through decades of consolidation. We combed the Ad Age archives to provide an overview that helps put the megamerger of Publicis Groupe and Omnicom into context.

1985

Martin Sorrell, finance director at Saatchi & Saatchi Co., took a stake in Wire & Plastic Products, a publicly traded U.K. wire-shopping-basket manufacturer. In 1986, Mr. Sorrell renamed the basket company WPP Group, using it as a platform to acquire marketing-services ventures. WPP still owns the wire-products business, which goes to market as Delfinware.

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