What happens when you do work that is creative, innovative and well designed? Eventually, you get bought. According to Adweek—Omnicom, parent company to a host of agencies including TBWA, DDB, BBDO, and Porter Novelli among others has announced that it recently purchased a majority stake of EVB, a 6-year-old interactive agency that specializes in immersive interactive brand experiences.
“NEW YORK Omnicom Group said it has bought a majority stake in EVB, a 6-year-old San Francisco Web shop that does work for Adidas and Kellogg's.
In EVB, Omnicom adds a 50-plus person creative shop well versed in creating Flash-driven brand sites. It recently launched an Adidas site for Kevin Garnett's new sneaker that used original footage and 3-D imagery of the National Basketball Association star.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
EVB joins Omnicom's roster of interactive agencies, which include Organic, Agency.com, Atmosphere BBDO and Tribal DDB. EVB CEO and founder Daniel Stein and executive creative director Jason Zada will continue to lead the agency.”
It's an interesting move for Omnicom because If you loook at their roster—EVB would be considered is a highly creative "Botique" compared to some of the larger interactive agencies Omnicon holds. One has to guess if they are diversifying their agencies to handle both the "bread and butter" type work as well as the more progressive stuff.
And it will be interesting to see how this impacts EVB. You’ll notice that I included EVB in my blogroll under “practitioners”—that was because they’ve pushed in envelope in interactive marketing. I hope they’ll still be able to keep their edge with this acquisition. We’ll have to wait and see. :)
