Acquisitions abound. For example, Aimia recently bought out Janrain and Trusource was acquired by Everise. As businesses merge, we’re seeing the rise of companies with versatile capabilities. A couple decades ago, we’d read about one major department store purchasing another (slightly less) major department store. These days, retailers are purchasing tech companies and vice-versa. Companies are making these mergers in anticipation of the challenges that lie ahead of them. They want the opportunity to tackle challenges internally.
Augeo, a company that specializes in engagement, loyalty, and incentive platforms, has announced that it has acquired Wingnut Advertising, a Minneapolis-based company delivering agency services since 2003. The acquisition will nearly double the size of Augeo Digital’s agency, a business unit of Augeo, and is aimed at strengthening its capabilities in creative, strategic branding, website development, and digital communications. Wingnut also has expertise in SEO, search engine marketing, and other digital marketing services.
In an increasingly digitalized world, SEO optimization is crucial to all industries in general and the loyalty space in particular. Bolstering web capabilities should make Augeo’s loyalty platforms more capable and better able to reach today’s consumers.
“The combination of these two high-performing teams will add scale and depth as Augeo continues to advance this strategically valuable part of our business,” says David Kristal, CEO of Augeo. “We remain as focused as ever on organic growth. Adding a team like Wingnut creates marketplace leverage and thought leadership to accelerate our core business growth and serve Augeo clients across multiple sectors.”
Amy Murphy, President of Augeo Digital, adds, “Augeo Digital has been known for web and app design, digital communications, video production, and engagement program development. With Wingnut, we are not only expanding our creative expertise, we are also adding a team of digital strategists that specialize in SEO/SEM solutions to clients looking to maximize their digital marketplace impact. We believe the combination of our teams, their technical experience, and marketing expertise will be a big factor in our growth.”
Greg Dutton, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Wingnut, also says, “We are privileged to work with great clients. Our clients and team members have always been our focus. It was important for us to find a company that recognized and lived our same values. While Wingnut has been a creative player in the Twin Cities’ agency scene for the last 15 years, we have more recently leaned into digital persuasion, making us a very relevant addition to the Augeo team.”
Jim Cousins, President of Wingnut, comments as well. “Joining with Augeo allows us to extend our skills to more national clients and bring Augeo expertise to our current clients. We look forward to rapidly growing this amazing combined team.”