.JPG)
Dentsu is restructuring its global network. Again.
Like Omnicom and others, it’s signalling fresh efficiencies, cost cuts, and organisational redesigns. On the surface, it looks like a financial move. But if you’ve read between the lines of this story, you know it isn’t just about balance sheets. For Dentsu, restructuring has always been a cultural struggle.
When I joined Dentsu in 2013, the mission was clear: build a truly global network. Tim Andree, CEO of Dentsu Network, was leading the charge, and the ambition was nothing short of transformative. Yet, looking back, what stands out is not the financial or structural engineering - it’s how Dentsu’s journey became a cultural experiment that kept shifting shape.
The Acquisition Experiment
The first experiment was with acquisitions. Dentsu went on a spree, buying strong local agencies across markets, hoping that ownership would translate into global presence. On paper, the logic was straightforward: acquire entrepreneurial talent, inherit their local strengths, and stitch together a global powerhouse.
But here’s the catch - you can buy companies, you can’t buy culture. Culture is not an asset you can simply absorb. Every local agency came with its own DNA, stories and unspoken codes. Instead of one global culture, Dentsu ended up with a patchwork quilt - vibrant but fragmented.
The Merger Experiment
The next leap came with the acquisition of Aegis. This was more than just scale - it was a pivot in strategy. Overnight, the Dentsu Aegis Network became the face of Dentsu outside Japan. In effect, Dentsu adopted the Aegis way of working.
Aegis brought global systems, structures and leadership. It gave shape to a scattered international footprint. Adoption gave Dentsu consistency and reach. But it also came with a price. When you adopt someone else’s systems, you also inherit their identity. Dentsu’s own creative DNA got diluted. It was global in form, but not in spirit.
The Mother Brand Experiment
The boldest experiment came with Dentsu Creative. The ambition was to forge a single global creative brand, united under the Dentsu name. No more patchwork. No more borrowed systems. This was about building culture, not buying or adopting it.
But here lies the hardest truth: creating culture is exponentially more difficult than restructuring an organisation. It requires coherence across behaviours, leadership signals and client relationships - not just a global nameplate.
Toyota and Honda successfully exported their manufacturing cultures across the world with precision and discipline. Dentsu’s struggle, however, was that creative culture is intangible, fragile, and deeply human. Processes can be replicated; creative culture cannot. It doesn’t scale through uniformity, it scales through resonance. And resonance requires authenticity - something born, not just branded.
Why Dentsu Matters
Dentsu’s story offers a powerful lens on the cultural challenge facing global networks. At its core, Dentsu has always been about creativity powered by technology - a uniquely Japanese formula that fuelled much of its domestic dominance. Many of its most groundbreaking innovations were deeply Japan-centric, born of the country’s cultural codes, consumer behaviours, and seamless embrace of technology in everyday life.
But exporting that innovation outside Japan was always a challenge - especially at scale. What worked brilliantly in Tokyo did not always translate in London, New York, or São Paulo. The DNA of Dentsu’s creativity was hyper-local, and while admired globally, it struggled to become universally resonant.
This is why Dentsu’s attempts to buy, adopt, and later create culture across its global network matter so much. They reveal a deeper truth: while structures can be reshaped, costs cut, and agencies acquired, the real challenge is transferring innovation and culture across borders. That is what ultimately defines whether a network becomes truly global.
Until Dentsu, or any other network, finds a way to make culture travel as seamlessly as capital or processes, it will remain in a cycle of reinvention: always rebuilding, never fully arriving.
The Unfinished Bridge
The real question is this: can creative culture ever truly be scaled globally, or is it destined to remain local first?
Because if culture doesn’t travel, growth won’t either.
And until networks learn how to carry culture seamlessly across borders, they will remain like Dentsu’s bridge to the world - bold in design, ambitious in scope, but unfinished at the far end, still reaching out into the mist, waiting for connection.
