Quebec digital shop looks to expand in the U.S.
Montreal-based digital agency Nurun has done a little cross-border shopping, and come home with some California love.
Nurun acquired San Francisco shop Odopod, a digital agency with more than 60 employees and clients such as Electronic Arts, Google and Tesla, marking another ex-U.S. agency digging deeper into the U.S. market. Odopod was named Ad Age‘s Small Agency of the Year for the Western Region this year.
Nurun is a small player stateside with just $6.7 million in U.S. revenue for 2010, according to Ad Age Datacenter. With Odopod, Nurun more than doubles that take: Odopod reported $11 million in 2010 revenue, up 100% from the year prior.
Nurun was formed in 2000 when several agencies merged under a new owner, Canadian newspaper and cable company Quebecor Media. Since then, it has snapped up shops in new markets including Italy and Spain. It acquired Atlanta-based Ant Farm Interactive in 2004 as its first U.S. outpost and the shop now handles work for AT&T and Loews Hotels. Today, the agency has 1,200 employees in 13 offices scattered across some unusual advertising locales such as Turin, Italy and Nancy, France, along with spots like Shanghai and Milan, and specializes in e-commerce, website and app development and social media.
Jacques-Herve Roubert, Nurun’s president-CEO, is the first to admit that Nurun lacks a strong brand in the U.S., even though it counts heavyweight marketers L’Oreal, Home Depot and Sears as clients. For that reason, Odopod will keep its name for the time being, but will ultimately fall under the Nurun shingle.
“We don’t want to kill a brand with a strong reputation, but in the end we want Odopod to help Nurun be recognized in the U.S.,” Roubert said.
Nurun works with Sears and Home Depot in Canada, McDonald’s in Spain and Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy globally with a campaign for Tag Heuer watches in the U.S. For L’Oreal, arguably its biggest client, Nurun handles digital work in all global markets except in the U.S. L’Oreal chose Interpublic Group of Cos.’ R/GA after a pitch against the agency.
But French-born Roubert, who once served as general manager of WPP’s Y&R in France, isn’t looking to compete with the giants among digital agencies.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about how we should be in the U.S.; it’s the most difficult market worldwide,” he said. “It’s easier to be in China than in the U.S. if you are not a U.S. company, since most of the successful agencies are U.S. agencies.
“We don’t want to be a new Digitas or Razorfish. We don’t have the size and that would be a very expensive.”
That’s why Roubert turned to Odopod, a small, technology-focused shop with roots in Silicon Valley. And, he added, that’s why we shouldn’t expect a string of further acquisitions from the company.
To read the full story in Advertising Age, click here.
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