WPN seals merger with digital shop

Watson Phillips Norman, the agency best known for its DRTV, press and direct mail campaigns, is boosting its digital capabilities by merging with Chameleon to form WPN Chameleon.
Set up in 2001 by WWAV (now Rapp) co-founder John Watson and creative chief Maria Phillips, the agency works across a range of commercial and fundraising clients, including Which?, Oxfam, HomeServe, NSPCC and Fidelity.
Chameleon was launched three years earlier, in 1998, by Vicky Reeves and has a similar mix of clients, including Unicef, Macmillan Cancer Support, Big Bus Tours and Deloitte.
WPN Chameleon will have a combined gross income of around £3.5m and staff of around 50, with Watson (pictured centre) as chairman and managing director and Reeves (pictured, right of centre) as deputy managing director.
The rest of the senior team will comprise digital strategy director Dan Martin (pictured, far right), digital services director Jeremy Davis, director of film and TV Maria Phillips, and fundraising director Gail Cookson.
Meanwhile, John Eversley and Annette Thurgood will be joint business directors, Bob Nash and Chris Martin (pictured, far left) joint creative directors and Alison Meredith (pictured, left of centre) executive planning director.
A WPN Chameleon spokesman said: “This opens a new chapter and creates not merely a new agency of some size, but far more importantly will allow us to help clients develop their marketing across the increasingly diverse range of media channels, driven by a passion for achieving results.”
This is not the first time WPN has jumped into bed with a digital business. In 2011, the agency forged a partnership with mobile marketing firm Sponge Group, social media specialist Tamar, and eCRM agency Harvest Digital. It is thought the merger with Chameleon will put this arrangement on the back burner.