Merger trend moves to PR arena
By
Nick Wakeman
Just like their many of their clients, the ConnellyWorks public relations firm has joined with several others to create a new entity with broader offerings to broader set of customers.
One of the better known marketing and public relations firms in the GovCon space has merged with a new firm.
ConnellyWorks is now part of "Yes&" -- a new marketing agency that has pulled together ConnollyWorks and at least three other PR firms to create a new company with a broader scope of offerings.
While we don’t generally cover the PR world or others that provide support services to government contractors, I found this interesting because in many ways it reflects many of the merger-and-acquisition trends driving contractors to make deals.
Namely, a need to reach more customers and markets and to bring new capabilities to existing customers. Scale is another plus.
It is the same reasoning I hear from GovCon executives making deals today. They want new customers to sell to and they want new capabilities to sell to existing customers.
ConnellyWorks is joining PCI Communications, LeapFrog Solutions and Carousel30 as operating units of Yes&.
Joanne Connelly, the founder of ConnellyWorks, will continue to lead her group as president. (Full disclosure: Connelly is a former editor of FCW, our sibling publication.) She’ll also join the executive team of Yes&.
“From a ConnellyWorks perspective, this provides our clients the best of both worlds – the same exceptional service and knowledgeable staff that they have come to expect, but with the ability to offer more comprehensive capabilities and a deeper bench of relentlessly creative top-notch talent,” she said in a release.
The different units of Yes& have little overlap in services and customers so they will not be competing internally for work. But they will be able to work together and draw on each other’s skill sets.
As with any merger or acquisition, the ideal is getting that one-plus-one equals three return. For ConnellyWorks the deal enhances its skills around digital marketing, video, social media and event production services.
Yes& only launched a few months ago, so ConnellyWorks is basically in on the ground floor of this new company.