Dive Brief:

• Accenture Interactive, the management consulting firm's advertising and marketing business, partnered with Ideoclick to expand its focus on e-commerce support services, per an announcement shared with Marketing Dive. Ideoclick is best known for its cloud-based e-commerce optimization software and services for businesses that sell on Amazon.
• Accenture and Ideoclick are joining forces as brands seek to expand their online sales, with the global e-commerce market forecast to grow 11% a year to $24.4 trillion by 2025, per data cited by Accenture. The companies will provide solutions for performance-based brand experiences and improved conversions, the announcement said.
• The consulting firm's Accenture Ventures also bought a minority interest in Ideoclick. Accenture and its subsidiaries most recently acquired digital agency Bow & Arrow and innovation firm Happen in October.

Dive Insight:

Accenture Interactive's collaboration with Ideoclick is another sign of how marketers are seeking comprehensive services that not only include digital advertising, but also support for digital marketplaces like Amazon as online sales grow. The e-commerce giant is estimated to command almost half (47%) of total retail e-commerce sales in the U.S., making its online marketplace the most important digital sales channel for many brands.

Amazon also has the third-biggest digital advertising platform in the country, reaching millions of customers when they're most ready to buy. However, Amazon's media options for marketers are reportedly challenging to navigate, suggesting there's an opportunity for Accenture to combine its strategy and consulting expertise with Ideoclick for brands that want to leverage Amazon's customer data. Accenture isn't alone in seeing an opportunity to help brands with advertising on Amazon. In 2017, WPP's Possible acquired Marketplace Ignition for a similar reason. 

Accenture's dealmaking is part of its significant push into advertising and marketing services, especially with last year's surprising acquisition of Droga5 for a reported $475 million. When Accenture announced it had bought Droga5, the consulting firm touted the idea of "a new agency model" focused on customer experience (CX) over traditional advertising. Droga5 was the biggest of several agency purchases Accenture Interactive has made in recent years, with the list also including Fjord, Karmarama, The Monkeys and SinnerSchrader.

Accenture's expanded capabilities led consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant Kimberly-Clark to choose Accenture Interactive as its lead creative agency, switching from WPP. Kimberly-Clark's Chief Growth Officer Alison Lewis said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that Accenture Interactive won the account because of technology the brand hadn't seen before. 

Like Accenture, consultancies Deloitte LLP and PwC LLP have added staff and acquired creative agencies with the goal of competing against established ad/marketing giants like WPP, Omnicom Group and Interpublic. Legacy agency holding groups have struggled to deliver growth as they work to become more efficient, partly by integrating technology into organizations built around creativity and not data or analytics.