DraftFCB has become the latest DM agency to snap up a digital shop with the purchase of London-based Blue Barracuda, which has a production centre in Estonia.
Blue Barracuda’s 60 staff will join DraftFCB’s 120 employees with the company being renamed DraftFCB London,” Fuelled by Blue Barracuda”.
Blue Barracuda was founded in 2002 and its clients include ITV Local, Pizza Hut, Nectar and the UK Film Council, for which it built the Find Any Film website. It uses its Estonian centre, based in Talin, for “faster, more cost-efficient production services”.
DraftFCB chief executive Laurence Boschetto says the deal creates “a new type of integrated agency in the UK that ultimately will provide innovative, media-agnostic solutions for a digital world”.
Barracuda chief executive Martin Talks becomes the president of digital, client services director Marcus Exall is to be digital director; planning director Nick Berry will be planning director, digital; and Adrian Nicholls, the managing director, becomes client services director.
DraftFCB is expected to make similar acquisitions in other key markets, such as Germany, India, China, Brazil, South Africa, the Middle East, New York and Chicago (pictured), where its HQ is based.
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