Austin Kelley & Fitzgerald Get Hitched

Forget Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. This is bigger! OK, not really, but in yet another upheaval in the Atlanta advertising market, Adweek is reporting the merger of two Interpublic-owned Atlanta shops, Austin Kelley and Fitzgerald+Co.
A few years ago, IPG persuaded Fitzgerald + Co. to merge with the Atlanta office of McCann-Erickson, so this latest consolidation isn’t such a big shock.
According to Adweek,

The combined entity will have a staff of about 165 people and annual billings of almost $300 million, based on estimates compiled by Adweek. A “handful” of jobs are being eliminated in the merger because of duplication of staff positions, Fitzgerald said. He declined to give the exact number.

The merger will make the agency one of the top 3 or 4 in the Atlanta ad market, a market which never seems to gain significant new business or major growth, despite the city’s reputation as a Sun Belt boomtown.