Experiential Marketing Agency Acquired For $52 Million

Dentsu's Aegis Lifestyle division has agreed to acquire New York-based event marketing agency, MKTG. MKTG has approximately 340 full time employees and 6,600 non-fulltime field network employees, who reportedly execute approximately 70,000 marketing events annually across the United States. The $52 million acquisition is yet another signal of the growing preference for experiential marketing.

A press release on the deal writes:

Unlike the conventional advertising approach which attempts to increase consumer brand awareness of a product or service through appropriate exposure to advertising in terms of both quality and quantity, experiential marketing is a marketing technique that allows a consumer to actually experience a product or a service through a marketing event designed to increase his or her engagement with a brand both rationally and emotionally, which in turn generates favorable social media buzz and creates a virtuous communication cycle.

The acquisition of MKTG, which recorded a gross profit of $42.9 million in 2013, is set to close by the third quarter of this year. Some of MKTG's clients include Aon, Bayer, Beats by Dre, Diageo, Fedex, Google, Groupon, Nike, Nintendo and P&G.