SMG Play Is Now Play (A Unit of Denuo)

As an aside to the below Xbox/Cadillac item, the news release had a little tidbit I didn’t catch when it happened; namely that SMG gaming unit Play now lives under Denuo. I asked Starcom if other units had been moved as well, and it turns out that yes, Reverb and Digits are also under Denuo now.

I wasn’t aware of this, and I’m fairly sure it wasn’t announced when Denuo was. It’s interesting because when Publicis unveiled Denuo, executives said the idea was to create a fleet-footed consultancy that could act as an advance guard, where appropriate, for the deployment of other Publicis agencies to come in and execute campaigns. But — and here’s the curious part — Denuo itself would not get involved in the nitty gritty of campaign execution.

Putting these three teams under Denuo’s wing suggests otherwise. Of course, it doesn’t by any stretch mean Denuo will act as a traditional agency network, but it does appear to have a hand (or three) in campaign execution. Mostly, it’s just another odd clue to the mystery of agency structures in the wake of mass media.