Makings of a merger: How Jack in the Box and Tidal7 became one

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Makings of a merger: How Jack in the Box and Tidal7 became one
The two digital agencies have now joined forces to form J7. Here is a sneak peek at what goes on behind the scenes of a merger.
Ubaid Zargar
22 Sep 2025

05:30
IST Follow UsNew UpdateL-R: Venkat Mallik, Founder & CEO, Tidal7; Roopak Saluja, Founder & Chairman, Jack in the Box WorldwideThe story of J7, a newly formed digital agency birthed after independent agencies Jack in the Box and Tidal7 merged, began nearly a decade ago, not with a contract but with a conversation.AdvertismentWhen Venkat Mallik, founder and CEO of Tidal7, was seeking mergers and acquisitions for Omnicom in India, he approached Roopak Saluja about Jack in the Box Worldwide, which he was the founder and chairman of. Nothing came of it at the time.“Jack in the Box had other plans,” Saluja recalls, but the contact created a connection. The two men stayed in touch, comparing notes as peers often do, occasionally talking about where the industry was heading and what challenges agencies were facing. Over the years, those informal exchanges grew more frequent and more serious, especially after Mallik had started his own venture with Tidal7.Early 2025 saw the crystallisation of these discussions. The two recognised that their agencies had complementary strengths and gaps, and they began to ask whether working together could create a more holistic offering for clients. Within weeks, they made the decision to merge Jack in the Box Worldwide and Tidal7 to form J7.This union did not unfold in isolation. A steady churn of mergers and acquisitions has reshaped the advertising industry in India and globally in recent years.Dentsu has led in India with a string of acquisitions since 2016, building digital and analytics capabilities through local partnerships. Havas has also expanded aggressively in the region.Globally, large consolidations, such as Omnicom’s agreement to acquire Interpublic Group, are a signal to a new order of ad industry.The trend has been clear: agencies of all sizes have been pushed to broaden capabilities, integrate data and technology, and meet client demand for speed and measurable impact.J7’s formation provides a window into what such moves look like behind the headlines. Apparently, it was less a grand transaction orchestrated by consultants than a carefully accelerated process managed in-house.Because both agencies were independent, the process moved quickly. “What’s the point of wasting time? Neither of us has to report to head office in New York or London or elsewhere. The buck stops here,” says Saluja.Finance teams devised what he describes as “a very innovative structure” that allowed the agencies to maintain their identities for the time being while linking them under one umbrella. Legal counsel, long-standing partners for both agencies, helped shape the framework.Complementary strengths and shared valuesThe logic of the merger rested partly on skills and partly on values. “Jack in the Box has certain skill sets; we’re known for certain things, and we also have certain very big gaps. I feel like Tidal7 felt the same way as well. Luckily for both of us, we were able to fill in each other’s gaps quite well,” Saluja says.While Jack in the Box has built up strong creative storytelling, design, social media, and research; Tidal7 has its own expertise in branding, multi-channel creative, digital analytics, and data intelligence.But what made the deal move quickly was not just capability. “Over and above all of this, the only reason that this deal got done really fast, and the reason that we are extremely optimistic about what we can do together, is that there was a commonality in values and vision,” he notes.Saluja acknowledges that words like “vision” often sound like what he jokingly calls “first-class marketing bullshit”, but insists that in this case, they mattered. “The moment you realise that, then you don’t sweat the small stuff.”There were differences of view along the way, but both sides were willing to make compromises in service of the larger goal. “There was a little bit of give and take, and the deal got done in record time,” reveals Saluja.A new name, a new identityOne visible outcome of the merger was the new name: J7. It carried a deliberate symbolism. “That was very deliberate because we wanted to signal… there is something new. At the same time, we want to have our cake and eat it too, because in reality, we still have our relationships of our existing clients that we’ve built over the years,” Saluja explains.The choice was treated like a client brief. “We were our own client. We wanted to signal something new, but also maintain continuity.” Someone jokingly remarked that the agency had been named after a boarding gate, but the name stuck. It was simple, catchy, and functional.Clients and conflictsOne of the most delicate issues in any merger is how to handle client portfolios, particularly if there are overlaps. In this case, there were none.“We were lucky that there were no overlaps of conflict to start with. So we didn’t have to deal with those complexities,” says Mallik.Even if conflicts were to emerge, both point out that the industry has had a long experience in handling them.Mallik adds that the dual identities of J7 could itself be an asset in managing conflicts: “It’s possible for us to use the two or three brand names that we now have to manage conflic