Consulting firm Accenture has bought London-based based creative agency Karmarama for an undisclosed sum, as consultancies and ad agencies continue to expand into each other’s territory.
Formed in 2000, Karmarama clients include Unilever, Honda, Deutsche Bank, and BBC Music, and is ranked as the third largest UK independent agency by billings, according to Nielsen.
The agency is also the UK’s largest in terms of staff numbers with around 250 employees.
Accenture Interactive has focused largely on buying digital agencies, a space Karmarama has increasingly been moving into, over the last two years.
Under the deal, Karmarama will keep its name, but become part of the Accenture Interactive network in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America (EALA). The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Karmarama’s Jon Wilkins (Executive Chairman), Ben Bilboul (Chief Executive Officer), Sid McGrath (Chief Strategy Officer) and Nik Studzinski (Chief Creative Officer) will continue in their current roles and take on additional Accenture Interactive leadership positions to drive brand strategy and creativity in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America (EALA).
“Acquiring a creative agency in London, where some of the world’s most iconic creative work is produced, will help us reshape how brands imagine, create, and deliver customer experiences,” said Brian Whipple, head of Accenture Interactive. “Karmarama will become part of the world’s largest digital agency, expanding our global capabilities across experience, marketing, content and commerce with excellence in creative and mobile. This will contribute to further differentiate Accenture Interactive as a new breed of agency – experience architects – which helps brands connect disconnected experiences and shares accountability with clients for their business outcomes.”
“Karmarama is a pioneer of modern creativity that CMOs want – a big ideas agency with a deep understanding of how to connect people with brands,” said Anatoly Roytman, head of Accenture Interactive Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America (EALA). “Together, we have created a new industry powerhouse and one of the largest homes for digital creativity in the UK. This acquisition will help Accenture Interactive to meet growing client demand in the UK market and beyond, and will enable us more than ever to push the boundaries when it comes to creating remarkable brand experiences.”
“As part of Accenture Interactive, we will dramatically enhance our ability to offer best-in-class creativity and digital delivery,” said Ben Bilboul, CEO at Karmarama. “We look forward to extending our creative ideas across the entire customer experience, offering clients consistent and connected creativity. We believe this is a genuinely game-changing moment for clients and for our team, who will now have even greater opportunity to work with leading global brands across international markets.”
Commenting on the deal, Keith Hunt, Managing Partner at specialist technology M&A advisor Results International, said: “The acquisition of Karmarma by Accenture Digital is a very exciting move for the industry and clearly a very significant step for Accenture. It’s the first time one of the consultancy businesses has really moved beyond the core digital services in terms of the acquisitions they’ve made to date.”
“ I suspect this move right into the creative space, which has up until now been the preserve of the more traditional marcoms groups and networks, will leave the major networks – and certainly the mid-market networks – a little shaken. This is very much a large new player announcing its intent to be a full-scale marcoms agency, rather than one just operating at the more technical end of digital marcoms.
“An equally significant point to consider is what this means for the other consultancies? People like Deloitte Digital, IBM iX, PWC, EY have all made acquisitions in the digital space in the last few years. They must now be looking at this and wondering what their next step should be. Many of those have hitherto said that they would not enter into what is a crowded space. However, now that Accenture has they probably need to reevaluate their strategies and consider whether they need to do the same to keep up.”