The partnership will see Grupo Garnier rebranding offices in eight markets as Allison+Partners, including in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. In addition, the agencies will field a joint team in Miami, led by Allison+Partners general manager David Baum and business development director Tomas Saiz to counsel North American brands entering Latin America. Together, the agencies will bring enhanced capabilities across public relations, digital and content marketing to the region.

Mark Penn, chairman and CEO, said in a statement that he has long known Latin America as a “doorway for businesses eyeing global expansion. With more than 600 million people across South America, representing 8% of the population, this collaboration creates an advantage for brands looking to engage the growing market.”

Grupo Garnier, a Stagwell global affiliate, was founded in 1921 and is one of the leading marketing groups in Latin America.

Growing around the globe

Stagwell has been on a growth spurt lately, especially after its merger with MDC Partners was finalized several months ago. In addition to Grupo Garnier, Stagwell added Anchor Worldwide and The Lab to its Global Affiliate network this year, and Allison+Partners entered a strategic partnership with Orient Planet Group to grow in the Middle East. It opened its Miami office in June 2021.

“We began our global expansion through the affiliate partnerships with strategic partners earlier this year, where we have gone into 11 strategic regions. We now have 34 partners in the strategic regions, overseeing almost 96 cities in almost 50 countries,” Anas Ghazi, chief strategy officer for Stagwell, told Adweek.

Ghazi added that the rapid expansion lets the network go deeper in areas of traditional and digital media, ecommerce and content creation. In Latin America, thanks to Grupo Garni, Stagwell inherits strategic partnerships that will help it compete and collaborate in the region’s key markets, especially when it comes to data-driven public relations, which is a key focus for Allison+Partners.

For Grupo Garnier, the partnership gives the storied agency group an infusion of investment into the region, with new PR technologies and training, and the ability for scalable growth. “The brands need a different type of approach with consumers. They’re more concerned about wealth and about intimate relationships,” Arnaldo Garnier, CEO of Grupo Garnier, told Adweek, adding that Allison+Partners and Stagwell brings an “entrepreneurial spirit” to the region.

For Allison+Partners, it immediately adds 100 people in markets throughout Central and South America, which gives the agency a big reach for its existing clients and for new business opportunities. “We’ve been sorely underrepresented in Latin America…to have Allison+Partners team members in those pitches and working for clients just gives us a lot more consistency across the network from a global perspective,” Jonathan Heit, COO, Allison+Partners, told Adweek.

The U.S. and Latin American markets will be centralized through the Miami office of Allison+Partners, which will include support of the Hispanic and Latin markets in the U.S. It will allow the agency to bring its global clients to Latin America, like Toyota, and bring Latin American clients to a global stage.

Allison+Partners and Grupo Garnier join a growing roster of Stagwell peers in Latin America, including creative, localization and content agencies Locaria, Ink and CPB Brazil in Brazil and digital design agency Code and Theory in Argentina.