Brand tech group You & Mr Jones has acquired Oliver and its parent firm Inside Ideas Group in a move designed to pave the way for clients to boost their inhouse martech capabilities.
Set up by former Havas global chief executive David Jones (pictured) in 2015, the acquisition will bring Oliver, Dare and video content agency Adjust Your Set into the You & Mr Jones fold, which already includes data company 55 and Gravity Road.
Inside Ideas Group clients include Adidas, Marriott, BMW, Microsoft, Virgin Media, 3M, Barclaycard, Google, The Guardian, PepsiCo, Axa and Manulife.
Simon Martin, founder and chief executive Oliver and Inside Ideas Group, said: “We’re excited to be joining a group that enables our clients to tap into a broad range of tech-led products and capabilities. We already offer brand marketers a totally new in-house creative model – now they will also be able to access a wider spectrum of the most advanced and innovative marketing technology solutions.
“We had a great deal of interest in our business, but for us, the opportunity to be part of a brand tech group and to connect our in-house model to the world’s leading marketing technology platform, was by far the most interesting.”
Jones added: “When we launched in 2015, we set out to disrupt marketing using technology and to create a brand-new model for clients. Simon is a brilliant talent and with Oliver he’s created an equally disruptive model that’s delivering brilliant creativity in-house and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for global brands.
“Plugging Oliver’s in-house model – and its sophisticated content creation and management technology platform – into our You & Mr Jones tech ecosystem is a very powerful combination. Together, we can create enterprise-level marketing solutions at an unprecedented scale and transform profoundly how a brand does its marketing.”
Corporate advisory company GP Bullhound advised Inside Ideas Group on the sale.
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