Brandtech Group acquires Jellyfish to create $1B digital marketing agency

Dive Brief:

The Brandtech Group, formerly You & Mr. Jones, has acquired 100% of 18-year-old digital media and marketing agency Jellyfish, according to information provided by the company. The news follows a period of negotiations initiated last August.
With the acquisition, Brandtech will comprise more than 7,000 employees and work for eight of the world’s ten largest advertisers, and 49 of the top 100, according to the agency. The group will also claim more than $1 billion in revenue.
The deal gives Brandtech added expertise in leveraging major digital marketing platforms and helping clients connect content, data and media that it can apply across its global network.

Dive Insight:

Founded in 2005, Jellyfish’s claim to fame for many years was serving as “Google’s ad agency.” Since then, the company has become one of the most globally certified companies across platforms including Google Marketing Platform, Google Cloud, Salesforce Snap, Amazon and other major social platforms. Brandtech is looking to leverage that experience throughout its global network, helping clients use technology and AI to connect content, data and media at scale.

"Marketing gets ever more complicated and our clients come to us for one thing: to help simplify this very complex world,” said Brandtech CEO David Jones in a release. “When I created the company we set out to be the best in the world at helping clients connect content, data and media using technology, and bringing Jellyfish into the Group allows us to take this to the next level.”

Jellyfish founder Rob Pierre will become chair of Jellyfish, a new position, and will work with Jones to scale the agency’s global footprint. Brandtech Media CEO Nick Emery will focus on Jellyfish’s day-to-day operations as its new CEO.

Though Brandtech asserted the acquisition came after Jellyfish’s “most profitable year yet,” the company has been majority-owned by French holding company Fimalac since November 2019. Fimalac merged data specialist Tradelab into Jellyfish to build the latter’s global scale. Now, as part of the acquisition, Fimalac will be one of Brandtech’s largest shareholders. Webedia President and Jellyfish Chairman Veronique Morali and Fimalac Director General Delegue Thomas Piquemal will join The Brandtech Group’s board.

Jellyfish is The Brandtech Group’s ninth acquisition since the firm’s founding in 2015 and comes after a July 2022 deal to acquire AI-driven e-commerce SaaS platform Acorn-i.