Today Sapient is announcing plans to acquire Nitro Group, a leading global advertising network with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and a highly coveted client list that includes Mars, ConAgra, Volvo, Nike and Foot Locker.

This is an historic acquisition in the advertising space in that it represents the first time a digital agency has moved to expand beyond interactive in a meaningful way to include brand-led broadcast advertising, often referred to as “above the line” advertising. 

Actions brand louder than words

Agencies large and small, from the traditional to the digital, all claim to having discovered their own, unique brand of secret marketing sauce that will integrate every experience into one compelling consumer connection and solve all marketing woes.

Some take the design du jour approach, clumsily pushing traditional ad approaches into emerging, channel  environments like mobile or social media.   Others avoid the question altogether and simply abandon traditional channel options to blindly follow the migration toward digital opportunities with more buzz.

It’s not that they don’t get it.  It’s that they just don’t get it all. 

We always believed the Internet would change everything

The $500 billion/year communications industry is in the midst of a dramatic upheaval as brands and their marketing partners struggle to keep up with today’s ever-elusive, technology-empowered consumers.  In fact, this is the main reason traditional advertising agencies are so focused on digital -- because media consumption is moving away from television and into digital media in record numbers.  However, while the role of television is changing, it is not going away; it’s evolving to become more digital as advances in TV sets and set boxes enable a more interactive experience.  Couple this shift with the rise of online media and advancement of mobile and in-store displays, and you quickly see that a) advertising is increasingly more digitally enabled and b) creating connected experiences across all of a consumer’s touch points is increasingly important.

The acquisition of Nitro Group, coupled with the tremendous success and evolution Sapient is experiencing within our marketing services and e-commerce business, yields a “one-of-a-kind” brand engagement offering.  We have the opportunity to help our clients shape their customers’ experiences -- from the moment a brand’s attributes are expressed in advertising, through to deployment via digital media and then in sales and service with cross-channel commerce. 

Sapient stands alone as a company capable of connecting these component parts in one holistic, integrated and powerful way.

No other company can lead with strategy and deliver multi-channel marketing combined with multi channel commerce on a global scale.

The acquisition is referenced in our press release) and discussed in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. You can also follow us in LinkedIn (Sapient Interactive Group) and on Twitter (SapeInteractive.) 

Last but not least. We have produced about a dozen  IPhone apps in the last couple of months alone, and a couple of Android initiatives are in the hopper. We see this as a booming opportunity, a completely new market ready to explode.

 Makes me want to dust off that old tag line "Architects for a New Economy" - I think I still have a mug with that on it :)

This is a huge thing for us right now. Clients are asking us to “create media for me” – “we need to do more with less”. We are producing a ton of original branded content to be distributed on the web.  Whether it is short or long form videos, tutorials, demonstrations, or simply branded entertainment for sites like YouTube, or Facebook Apps, and widgets. Clients are much more educated on the power and value of these tactics

We have all read about the decline of media spending across most mediums. The online space has not gone unaffected this time. If fact we have seen quite a few of our clients reduce their overall media spend. What may be counter intuitive to some given how negative consumer sentiment is that the media we are buying is performing better from an ROI perspective for many of our clients. The dramatic drop in the cost of premium online media, but only a slight decrease in response rate drive this effect.  This means we are buying much more for less on our client’s behalf and they are getting better results, which in turn means they decide to increase their spend. We see this as a very positive indicator of what’s to come.

Fortunately we have made huge strides in building the marketing services component of our interactive business. Key aspects of this space have always proven to be counter-cyclical to the economy. Unsold inventories, and reduced consumer demand call for real action. These actions, and frankly increased spending usually come in the areas of sales promotion, email marketing, discounting, incentives, sweepstakes, and even liquidation sales. We are incredibly well positioned to support our clients in these areas.