Publicis.Poke is reborn as commerce agency LeShop

Publicis Groupe UK is launching a new creative agency out of the ashes of Publicis.Poke specialising in building brands in the commerce space, offering brand activation, retail experience and omnichannel marketing.

Dubbed LeShop, the agency will help clients seamlessly integrate brand and commerce by making brands “unmissable wherever and whenever a purchase decision is made, to drive growth in both brand equity and commercial performance for clients”.

Publicis.Poke, which formed in 2019 as a single integrated shop out of Arc, Poke and Publicis London was folded back into the main agancy in April this year.

Now, LeShop, which brings together expertise from across Publicis Groupe UK will offer brand, commerce and CRM with a team of more than 80 specialists working across 20 client brands at launch. LeShop has offices in London and Dublin and founding clients include BT:EE, Nomad Foods and OVO.

The creative shop will be led by Amanda Farmer. Having joined Publicis.Poke in 2022, Farmer led the agency’s commerce offering as chief client officer, driving impressive growth, increasing revenue and doubling the size of her team. She has been working for the main agency since April.

Prior to joining Publicis Groupe UK, Farmer was chief client officer at WPP’s ‘The Pharm’, following five years at VMLY&R (now VML), latterly as managing director.

She said: “We’re in a new frontier of creativity where commerce isn’t just the transactional end of a traditional marketing funnel, today everything can be a commerce experience. Our mission with LeShop is to bring creativity to build brands that are not just existing in commerce, but are designed for it.”

Farmer is joined by Mark Jenkins as chief strategy officer, Gabriela Lungu as chief creative officer and Maria McDowell as operations director. The executive leadership team has been working together since 2023 to form the new agency.

It will be part of the Publicis Commerce practice, led by chief commerce officer Steve Ricketts, and is designed to tap into new consumer buying behaviour, which the agency group maintains has created a new creative landscape for commerce.

LeShop will deliver creative storytelling across the entire customer journey that is rooted in behavioural insights, in order to drive sales and strengthen client brands.

The move comes just a week after Publicis Groupe’s acquisition of Mars United, claimed to be the world’s largest independent commerce marketing company. Mars helps marketers make their products top choices in both online and offline shopping through its retail consultancy, commerce media expertise, and proprietary shopper intelligence platform.