Clock Creative and Marketecture are merging to form what will be one of the region’s largest B2B specialist agencies.
The new, and as yet unnamed company, will be based at MediaCityUK’s Blue Tower, currently the home of Marketecture.
“We’ve known each other for about three years and it seemed a natural fit – we’ve both got established teams and established clients and we wanted to set up an agency with some kind of hit behind it,” Marketecture’s Michael Clark told Prolific North.
Ann Rimmer admitted that she “hadn’t seen this coming”.
“We’d looked at acquisitions, but not mergers, but this feels like a good fit and a good time to do it.
“We both have ambitions to grow and we have complementary skills. As you know, agency models are changing, and together we have an agency that’s ready for the future.”
Clark was keen to underline that this was a merger, not an acquisition and that would mean a new brand and a new company. The details of this will be revealed later this summer.
The company will be owned by Marketecture’s Max and Michael Clark and Ann Rimmer, with a shareholding “reflecting the relative size of the current businesses”.
It will have a staff of 30 and turnover will be just over £2 million.
Clients include DHL Supply Chain, PetSafe, AMEC, Reed Elsevier, Financial Times, dock10, Johnston Sweepers, London Business School, Lloyd’s Register, TfGM, Pall-Ex and Rolls Royce.
There would be no job losses as a result of the merger, but that some staff were going through a consultation process, because some job terms and positions would be changing as a result.
“Our key priority is to bring our staff together and work together,” explained Rimmer.
“The plan is to keep everybody and grow.”
Between them, the agencies have been going for 27 years, with Clock established in 1999 and Marketecture four years later.