Meebo Buys Research Firm Mindset Media

http://adage.com/article/digital/meebo-buys-research-firm-mindset-media/148749/
Meebo, an internet company specializing in social-networking tools for digital publishers, has acquired market-research firm Mindset Media for an undisclosed sum.

The deal allows Meebo to capitalize on Mindset's audience-research data, which groups internet audiences by what the company considers personality types, such as "openness" or "pragmatism," instead of the stock demographic categories such age, gender or location. Meebo, which had already been using Mindset's analysis for the past year, will absorb 12 of its 14-member staff, which is based in New York.
"Mindset allows us to both connect certain kinds of users with the brand that they will respond most to," said Meebo Chief Operating Officer Martin Green, adding that the research company can better predict which brands a consumer will more likely want to buy.

"It's about finding the affinity of one brand to another," he said. "How can you predict whether a wealthy middle-aged man is more likely to respond to an advertisement from Audi vs. Mercedes? Demographics don't help you predict that."

Mindset works by tracking people's online behavior via cookies it installs through participating websites, such as those from NBC Universal, and applies a personality type based on how people browse the internet. As an example, a person who is considered to have "openness," as defined by the company, is two times more likely to buy organic food than the average consumer.

Vegas Agency Buys Part of Sarkissian Mason, Gets Boeing

After a decade-long run, the founding partners of boutique digital shop Sarkissian Mason are parting ways, with co-founder Matt Mason leaving for R&R Partners, a full service-independent agency based in Las Vegas.

The breakup, described as amicable, comes after the agency lost a major client last year when Mazda North America moved its digital account and all other ad work to WPP's newly formed Team Mazda. "They decided to roll up with WPP" and it "kind of left us in a tough spot," Mr. Mason said. So "we opted for splitting the company."
Under the terms of the deal, R&R acquired the Mason side of the business for an undisclosed amount, including seven employees and a digital account for Boeing, which Mr. Mason ran while at Sarkissian Mason, both parties said. (Mr. Mason's team had run the Mazda account.)
Mr. Mason, who co-founded the digital shop 11 years ago with Patrick Sarkissian, is taking over as R&R's new VP-digital strategy and development. He will remain in Phoenix, where he had worked as Sarkissian Mason's executive creative director. Mr. Sarkissian, the firm's CEO, is staying in New York, where he will continue to run the agency, which will keep the name Sarkissian Mason, about 30 employees and a client list of about 10, including CNN and Ford, Mr. Sarkissian said.
Sarkissian Mason was identified by Ad Age in 2007 as "one of the hottest digital agencies around," making a list of 20 lesser-known but innovative agencies considered possible takeover targets. Sarkissian Mason's work for Mazda helped the company earn the 2008 "Automotive Online Marketer of the Year," by JD Power & Associates.
For R&R Partners, the addition of Mr. Mason and Boeing continues a growth spurt that has included recent acquisitions of two small Southern California agencies, the Ballpark and Kaiser Marketing. The agency has also hired Phil Motta, of Motta & Morris, and David Ellis, of Veo Group, and opened a new office in Los Angeles.
R&R, now with 268 employees in six cities, is best known for the "What happens here stays here" tagline created for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Other specialties include public relations, issues advocacy and government affairs. The agency recently won work from real estate company Re/Max that will include outdoor and digital advertising for 10 regions. The Boeing account is for Newairplane.com, which showcases the manufacturer's fleet.

http://adage.com/article/agency-news/vegas-agency-buys-part-sarkissian-mason-boeing/149633/

Salesforce to acquire social metrics company Radian6

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20110330/SOCIAL07/303309989/salesforce-to-acquire-social-metrics-company-radian6

Customer relationship management company Salesforce.com—which hasrapidly become much more than a CRM company—plans to acquire social media monitoring company Radian6 for $326 million in cash and stock.
Radian6 is a leader in the social media marketing ROI arena, offering dashboards and social keyword sentiment analysis. It boasts such customers as Dell Inc., Eastman Kodak Co. and United Parcel Service. The deal is expected to close this summer.

Merkle buys digital marketer Impaqt

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2011/03/29/merkle-buys-digital-marketer-impaqt.html#

Merkle Inc. has acquired Pittsburgh digital marketing firm Impaqt for an undisclosed price.

The deal gives the Columbia marketing and direct mail company a bigger presence in the world of online marketing and advertising. Impaqt advises clients about search engine optimization, the science of structuring a company’s website to improve the chances consumers will find it when they search online search engines such as Google and Bing. Impaqt also advises companies on paid online marketing efforts. Its clients include Mercedes-Benz, Tiffany & Co. and JPMorgan Chase.

Impaqt has about 80 employees and expects to surpass $90 million in revenue this year. Merkle has about 1,400 employees, about 500 at its Columbia headquarters. The company had about $254 million in revenue in 2010.

http://www.impaqt.com/company/IMPAQT_Merkle_Press_Release.cfm

DiJiPOP Raises $1 Million For Digital Shopper Marketing Marketplace

DiJiPOP’ basically aims to automate the digital shopper marketing process, enabling retailers to run both paid and non-paid marketing programs on their ecommerce websites.
The startup’s on-demand platform lets retailers dynamically create product ads and manage, analyze and optimize campaigns in real time.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/06/dijipop/#

Pattison buys Onestop Media

http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/media-news/pattison-buys-onestop-media-24792
Pattison Outdoor Advertising Inc. just got a lot more digital with the acquisition of Toronto’s Onestop Media Group.

Founded in 2005, Onestop owns and operates digital advertising networks for the transportation, malls, sports retail, residential and hospitality industries. The company counts Hilton hotels, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and Sporting Life among its clients.

“We had a relationship for the last three years on a joint venture and worked closely on a number of things,” said Michael Girgis, president of Onestop Media. The two companies collaborated on a mall network in 30 malls across 90 markets, and Onestop provided the platform for Pattison’s Calgary airport network, for example. “We saw a common vision and common ground on how to do business in the digital space and this just became a natural next step.”

RadiumOne raises $21M for new ad network with a social twist

http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/10/radiumone-raises-21m-for-new-ad-network/#
RadiumOne said it has raised $21 million for a new digital ad network that leverages the social web.

That a lot of capital for an ad-based startup, but the San Francisco company believes it can deliver superior advertising performance through its patent-pending ShareGraph technology. The ShareGraph technology analyzes how users communicate with their closest connections and then identifies the specific consumers who are most likely to engage with a brand’s ads. RadiumOne says this works better than traditional behavioral targeting techniques. It also enables consumers to share ads with their friends, creating a multiplier effect for advertisers.

The company is the brainchild of Gurbaksh Chahal, founder and chief executive. He became famous as a whiz kid entrepreneur, founding two ad companies worth $340 million by the age of 25. He founded the ad network ClickAgents at age 16 and sold it in 2000 for $40 million. Then he started behavioral targeting firm BlueLithium in 2004 and sold it to Yahoo in 2007 for $300 million.

New-School Holding Companies Are Lean, Mean and Hungry for Acquisitions

It's an interesting post-recession development: new-school holding firms spending millions to swallow up indie shops and build out mini-empires, each attempting to put its own spin on a concept pioneered nearly 60 years ago by Marion Harper. They include Project, London-based Engine and Korea's Cheil. There are also slightly more senior firms, such as MDC Partners and Dentsu, which are both acquisition hungry.

Industry observers say there's room in the marketplace for new players but what isn't clear is who will benefit the most from more agency networks -- the umbrella organizations themselves, the shops selling to them or clients.

Project Worldwide, formed last October, is home to George P. Johnson, Juxt Interactive, G7 Entertainment Marketing and Partners & Napier, which Project acquired this month. All told, Project has 1,100 employees, 25 offices and 2011 projected billings of more than $830 million. That's relatively tiny by comparison to the Big Four, but Project is promising to ramp up fast.

http://adage.com/article/agency-news/ad-holding-companies-grow-madison-avenue/149593/

Marketers Aren't Sure About ROI but Will Spend More on Social Media, WFA Says

All but one of 24 marketers surveyed in a new report from the World Federation of Advertisers and WPP research firm Millward Brown is committed to increasing the time and money they spend on social media in the next 12 months, even if they don't think they can accurately measure the results.

Marketers surveyed said their fan pages are about generating insight, advocacy, loyalty and engagement -- but not necessarily sales -- from their fans. Only 23% of respondents said they were convinced that they were getting a good return on their investment, while 18% said they think their ROI is "average" and 9% described it as "poor."
http://adage.com/article/global-news/marketers-spend-social-media-wfa/149567/

Digital Strategy Paying Off for Publicis

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/business/media/28levy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1301331931-0CqEdF54xy6b6Cqvt9HNlw
Five years ago, he spent $1.3 billion of Publicis shareholders’ money to buy Digitas, an Internet advertising agency, prompting rivals and some analysts to sneer that he had paid too much. Yet Mr. Lévy pushed ahead, adding other digital agencies, including Razorfish for $530 million in 2009.

 The company’s growth has outpaced the market, he noted during an interview, and the digital skills it has acquired are helping it with technology-conscious clients like Microsoft, for which Publicis will manage more than $600 million in North American ad spending.

Digital business accounted for 28 percent of revenue at Publicis last year, putting it neck and neck with WPP Group, the world’s biggest advertising company. While WPP also invested in digital advertising, it did so less aggressively. But it too is reaping the benefits of the recovery, reporting solid gains in revenue and profit for last year.

“What we have seen since the beginning of 2010 — it was almost like somebody turning on a light switch,” said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, during a Deutsche Bank Securities conference in Palm Beach, Florida, this month.

Nevertheless, the advertising turnaround has been uneven. While some traditional media, like print, continue to lag behind, spending has bounced back strongly on television. And emerging markets, which barely stumbled during the crisis, continue to push ahead.

For the moment, he said, the company was focusing on smaller, “targeted” deals. Since the beginning of the year, for example, Publicis has acquired four small agencies in Britain, each of which brings a specific area of expertise.

“Some acquisitions are interesting to look at because of the scale they would bring to Publicis,” he said. “But it would be problematic to spend two or three years just building scale.”

EBay Buys GSI for $2.4B in Bid to Manage E-Commerce for Big Retailers

EBay has agreed to acquire GSI Commerce, the e-commerce technology and marketing services company, for $2.4 billion in cash and stock. In its second-largest deal to date, eBay is making a play to manage the e-commerce operations of other large retailers and brands, opening another front in its competition with Amazon.

http://adage.com/article/digital/ebay-buys-gsi-commerce-2-4-billion/149608/

GSI's e-commerce services accounted for $700 million in 2010 revenue, with global marketing adding another $200 million, Mr. Swan said. GSI will contribute $1.2 billion by 2013, Mr. Swan said. The deal is expected to close during the third quarter.

 As part of the deal, eBay will divest GSI businesses not core to its strategy. All of GSI's licensed sports merchandise business and 70% share of ShopRunner and Rue La La will be sold to a new company, with GSI founder and CEO Michael Rubin at its helm. GSI acquired the flash sales site Rue La La in 2009.

Traditionally an e-commerce and warehouse provider for retailers, GSI has made recent strides into marketing services. It has acquired a number of smaller shops over the last few years, including San Francisco-based website design and marketing firm Silverlign, email firm eDialog and affiliate-marketing firm Pepperjam. The agency unit GSI Interactive, which was rebranded True Action in late 2009, had $109 million in U.S. yearly revenue that year, coming in at 15 on Ad Age DataCenter's U.S. digital agency ranking.

These agency services will dovetail with current eBay properties to get retailers into social and mobile commerce, Mr. Saridakis said. Last year, eBay purchased Milo, a search engine for local shopping; mobile barcode scanning and price comparison app RedLaser; and app developer Critical Path. In 2006, eBay acquired internet phone company skype for $2.6 billion

Project Worldwide (George P Johnson) acquires Partners & Napier

Project WorldWide has bought Partners & Napier in Rochester, which works for clients like Bausch & Lomb, Constellation Brands, Delta Private Jets, Eastman Kodak, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and United Parcel Service. The financial terms of the deal, to be announced on Thursday, are not being disclosed.

The holding company is Project WorldWide in Auburn Hills, Mich., which was formed in October with a nucleus that includes agencies in the United States (George P. Johnson and Juxt Interactive), Australia (the Spinifex Group) and Germany (Raumtechnik).

Partners & Napier has 150 employees in three locations: the Rochester headquarters, an office in Atlanta and a field office in San Francisco. Plans call for the agency to fulfill a longtime goal in early May by opening an office in New York.

Partners & Napier was formed in 2004 when the executives of the Rochester outpost of the Wolf Group, part of Wolf Group Integrated Communications, completed a management buyout after the sudden closing of Wolf Group Integrated Communications.

Since then, the agency’s principals had not considered giving up their independence, said Sharon Napier, president and chief executive at Partners & Napier.

Project WorldWide has “identified no fewer than 50 potential agency targets” for additional acquisitions, Mr. Vallee said, adding that he hoped to complete three or four deals in the next year to year and a half, “a couple of which we’re already engaged in discussing.”

Partners & Napier was at one time part of a network of three independent agencies called the Partners Group, also composed of Partners & Jeary in New York and Partners & Edell in Toronto. It was dissolved after those other two agencies were acquired.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/business/media/17adco.html?_r=1

Adometry is new name for Click Forensics following acquisition

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20110302/ADVERTISING12/303029997/adometry-is-new-name-for-click-forensics-following-acquisition
Online traffic quality company Click Forensics has acquired ad-verification provider Adometry Inc., and in the process will change its name to Adometry.

Click Forensics, which traditionally had focused on the search market, said its new name better reflects its growing presence in the display ad arena, reinforced by its acquisition of Adometry. Terms of the deal were not released.
 
As part of its reorientation, the new Adometry is launching Adometry Ad Analytics, a solution that offers ad verification, attribution and optimization across ad networks and publisher sites, the company said.