Merkle Buy Continues Australian Growth

In Australia, data-driven marketing firm Merkle has acquired 3-year-old Sydney-based ad and strategy agency Amicus Digital.

Amicus, which also has an office in Melbourne, provides people-based strategy, transformation, technical implementation, support and campaign execution. The firm will continue to be led by co-founders Blair Cooke, MD and Jessie Mitchell, Commercial and Client Service Director, with Blair reporting to Simon Ryan, CEO OF DAN ANZ and Zhengda Shen, President of Merkle APAC.

Ryan says Amicus 'has a market-leading reputation for expertise across all aspects of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and brings a unique and in-demand offering to our group'; and says the agencies have 'a strong cultural and strategic fit'. According to Shen: 'Australia is a priority market for Merkle's expansion. On the back of bringing Columbus and DWA into the Merkle family locally, it's critical that we build on this momentum and continue to build out our capabilities to establish a strong local market position'.

According to Cooke, the acquisition 'provides considerable differentiation for Merkle and DAN [Merkle's parent, Dentsu Aegis Network] in Australia and we look forward to delivering on the opportunities and potential for our clients and partners'.

Merkle is building its presence in Australia: DAN brought the c.100 staff of its data-driven marketing agency Columbus under the Merkle umbrella in March this year, and three months earlier it acquired b2b digital media and marketing agency DWA, whose staff in the country are part of the Merkle network.

Web sites: www.merkle.com and www.amicusdigital.com.au .
Pictured L to R: Zhengda Shen, Blair Cooke, Jessie Mitchell, Simon Ryan