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.