In a marriage of dissimilar partners, traditional marketing agency Neighbor in Santa Monica has acquired digital agency Guru Media Solutions in Venice.
Neighbor’s clients include Jamba Juice and diagnostic website Wellness FX. Guru’s roster features the UCLA Anderson School of Management and upscale bath remodeler Snyder Diamond.
Linda Price, co-owner and president of Neighbor, said what drove the deal was her firm’s need for expertise in digital and social marketing. On the other side of the deal, Guru’s clients wanted more strategic direction and traditional advertising.
“We both shared values of wanting to work on brands we feel passionate about,” Price said. “We pride ourselves on being nimble and we had an opportunity to become more nimble in digital and social.”
The combined company has 30 employees in Neighbor’s Santa Monica offices. The company doesn’t plan to reduce its payroll as a result of the acquisition. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Guru founder Jared Levy joins Neighbor as co-owner and chief digital officer. Chad Seymour remains chief executive and co-owner. Also, Levy will retain his position as adjunct professor of advertising at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Movie Marketing
Entertainment-focused ad agency M3 in Burbank has decided to join its clients in the film production business.
The new division, M3 Creative Film, will make demographically targeted specialty films for TV and theatrical release with budgets between $1 million and $10 million. M3 will handle marketing for the films.
The production house’s first project is “John Dies at the End,” a horror comedy based on a popular novel.
Partner Andy Meyers said M3 will remain focused on its core advertising business, but he and partner Brad Baruh saw an opportunity to expand into a complementary line of work.
“This represents a strategic repositioning for the agency that we believe is required in a marketingcentric world,” Meyers said in a statement.
Times Change
Brad Agens, former head of ad sales at Gorilla Nation Media, has joined Los Angeles Times Media Group as senior vice president of digital sales.
Agens was one of Gorilla Nation’s first employees and eventually supervised all sales strategy and operations. Now he will sell space on LATimes.com, a site with a monthly audience of 16 million. His hiring reflects a strong focus on digital revenue growth.
“A pivotal factor in the Los Angeles Times Media Group’s evolution is our ability to better capitalize on digital revenue,” Michael Tannourji, executive vice president of advertising, said in a statement. “I’m very excited to have an online media maverick like Brad Agens lead the charge.”
Whirled Video
Digital marketing agency Whirled specializes in online viral videos, having produced them for David Beckham, Lady Gaga and the White House. But two weeks ago the Venice agency released a brief vignette for the biggest name in Internet video: Google Inc.
Titled “Big Presentation,” the video targets business executives by showing a marketing director struggling to put together a slideshow. He overcomes the challenge by cutting and pasting material from Google searches just in time to make the presentation – to his kid’s grade-school class.
Distribution of the video was handled by the client, which owns YouTube and Adsense Video service.
Agencies & Accounts
Mercury Media, the direct-response TV-buying agency in Santa Monica, has hired Michael Montgomery as vice president of business development. He will focus on attracting customers interested in lead generation. Prior to joining Mercury Media, Montgomery worked at RevShare, a Temecula-based TV ad network, where he helped digital advertisers move into television advertising. … Ad agency Team One in El Segundo has launched a campaign for Lexus’ new ES hybrid that includes a contest among startup companies for seed money. Four winning companies will split $100,000. The campaign also includes national TV, billboards, online and print. … Amy Levy Public Relations in Sherman Oaks has a new client in Loren Stephens, a professional memoir writer. After completing her mother’s memoir, she created her company Write Wisdom Inc. to offer guidance for those interested in writing a memoir or life story. … Hit House, a company that licenses and composes music for movie trailers and commercials, has moved to a new studio at 4611 Milne Drive in Torrance.
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
