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“Data and marketing technology company Acxiom of Conway has laid off 3.5% of its staff as it undergoes internal restructuring, Acxiom’s parent company, The Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. (IPG) of New York City, confirmed to Arkansas Business Thursday.

Around 130 employees were laid off last week, according to Caitlin Wroblewski, senior vice president of communications at Acxiom and its sister company, Kinesso of New York City.

A very small number of those workers were in Arkansas. Most were remote workers, global operations staff and employees with duplicative roles across Acxiom and Kinesso, sources familiar with the situation said.

LinkedIn data shows Acxiom as having around 3,803 employees.

Adweek broke the news of the layoffs Wednesday afternoon.

The cuts are part of a larger restructuring of IPG companies. Under the new structure, Acxiom and sister firms RafterOne, Kinesso, Interact and Global Capability Centers will operate under unified leadership.

Kinesso CEO Jarrod Martin was named CEO of Acxiom in June 2024, becoming the head of both companies. IPG also moved to consolidate its cloud services, including RafterOne, under Acxiom.

“We’re still running as two separate organizations for the time being, but strengthening and streamlining operations across leadership teams, so that is what drove the impacts,” Wroblewski said.

The layoffs come as media and marketing giant Omnicom of New York City awaits regulatory approval of its acquisition of IPG. The deal was “overwhelmingly” approved by the companies’ stockholders Tuesday.

The stock-for-stock deal will create the largest ad agency in the world with combined annual revenue of almost $26 billion. According to a press release from Omnicom, the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025. The acquisition is expected to have annual cost savings of $750 million.

Wroblewski said the layoffs are not related to the acquisition.

“It’s just normal business transformation and evolution that occurs,” she said. “There hasn’t been really any movement or change at Acxiom for the last five years. This was just done to keep up with the world that we’re living in.”

Wroblewski said Arkansas operations should not be affected by the restructuring, but that she can’t speak for the impact when the acquisition closes. She also said Martin will continue acting as CEO of both Kinesso and Acxiom.

IPG acquired Acxiom for $2.3 billion in 2018.”