TBWA Worldwide is an international advertising agency whose main headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The Agency is a unit of Omnicom Group, the world’s largest advertising agency holding company. It was founded in 1970 in Paris, France, by William G. Tragos (American, Management), Claude Bonnange (French, Marketing), Uli Wiesendanger (Swiss, Creation), and Paolo Ajroldi (Italian, Client Services). The first letter of each founder’s name provided the initials for the new organization. They were purchased by the Omnicom Group in 1993.
In the United States, TBWA operates through TBWA\Chiat\Day, with offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Nashville. In other parts of the world the company also operates under a mixed brand name such as TBWA Hunt Lascaris, a highly awarded agency based in South Africa, TBWA\CONCEPT UNIT, West Africa’s most awarded creative agency, and TBWA\RAAD an emerging operation that spans the Middle East and North Africa. The Asia Pacific regional operations was split into three regions – Asia, Oceania and Greater China – and headquarters moved from Hong Kong to Singapore.
Within the Omnicom Group of Companies, TBWA is generally partnered with OMD and PHD for Media solutions, TEQUILA for below the line marketing communications, Ketchum and Gavin Anderson for Public Relations and Investor Relations, and Agency.com for interactive. That said, in specific markets it partners or works with other Diversified Agency Services (DAS) agencies within Omnicom’s portfolio.
In the mid-1990s TBWA began expanding globally spreading rapidly. It began acquiring global accounts such as Master Foods that helped strengthen the breadth and depth of its offering, so much so that in 2004 it was named by Advertising Age as Global Agency Network of the Year. In 2010, it was named by Advertising Agency as one of the top ten agencies of the Decade