Toronto-based MDC Partners has announced the acquisition of Communifx and a desire to further invest in the data and analytic side of its businesses.
Communifx is a marketing analytics and strategy firm in Pittsburgh, Penn.
“Communifx provides scalable technology, tools and expertise to improve return on marketing investment for our clients and for MDC partner firms,” said Chris McDonald, president of MDC’s consumer insights group, in a statement. “Google trained us all to pay-for-performance, real results. We must be able to demonstrate growth for our clients’ brands, and how to continually optimize performance on an ongoing basis.”
Miles Nadal, MDC chair and chief executive officer, said Communifx marks the beginning of a period of growth-by-acquisition for his holding company, using nearly $200 million in excess liquidity.
“I’d like to spend $150 million dollars in the [data and analytics] space in the next three years,” Nadal said. That includes investment in existing MDC companies, and acquiring new analytics companies on both sides of the border.
Marketers’ increasing interest in return on investment has translated into greater demand for analytics, said Nadal. “I actually don’t think we’re in the advertising business anymore. I think we’re in the investment management business, managing return on marketing investment.”
MDC is also on the hunt for top-notch talent to staff its partner agencies. Nadal has set a goal of hiring an additional 500 staff across all its businesses.
Yesterday, MDC’s Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners agency announced the hiring of Marc Lucas, former executive creative director of Razorfish New York, as its chief creative officer.
“While everybody else was acquiring [in previous years]… we were hoarding cash and minding the store. Now that everybody’s reeling a bit, we’re in a very accelerated growth mode.”
Along with Tuesday’s Communifx announcement, MDC announced the reorganization of its existing agencies to “better represent the strategic focus of the company,” according to a company statement.
MDC’s 29 companies now fall into two divisions: full-service agencies and strategic consultancies will be part of the already established Strategic Marketing Services (SMS) arm, while data analytics firms, one-to-one and consumer insight companies will be housed under the newly formed Performance Marketing Services Group. Communifx will be part of the latter group.
In terms of MDC’s Canadian operations, this places Allard Johnson Communications, Zig, 6 Degrees Integrated Communications (formerly Accumark), Bruce Mau Design, Bryan Mills Iradesso, Henderson Bas and Veritas Communications in SMS. Northstar Research Partners falls under the new Performance Marketing group.
