Crayon and HS&P merge
09.04.2009

Digital agency Crayon and relationship marketing agency HS&P have confirmed that their businesses are to merge.

The deal also includes the launch of a new email marketing tool. Called SICAMS, the tool will enable brands to tackle issues of deliverability, measurability and best practice.  SICAMS will allow retailers to personalise and populate email communications at the source, in order to ensure they can send relevant, timely and personal updates and offers to customers and prospects, whilst also maintaining core brand values.

The Crayon and HS&P deal was engineered by HS&P’s Chief Strategy Officer Mark Runacus and Crayon’s Managing Director Richard French, who began discussing a formal partnership over a year ago.  Both agency brands will remain, as will the full management teams. The newly-formed group’s clients will include Aviva, BT, Diageo and Honda, with a total staff of over 70.

Runacus explains: “We had aggressive plans for digital and wanted to speed up our client offering.  Initially, it was thought that the way to do this was through collaboration on ad hoc projects when relevant. However, it quickly became clear that the synergies between the businesses could pave the way for something more permanent, so we started looking into the possibility of HS&P acquiring Crayon.”

French adds: “Mark and I drew up a simple SWOT of our businesses: Crayon had our online customer journey offering and HS&P had strong data and loyalty credentials.  The fit was obvious – an integrated client product with a strong focus on digital. We can now extend our expertise in digital customer journeys across the entire piece.”

HS&P’s acquisition of Crayon follows a year of aggressive growth at the agency, with the launches of data.HS&P. the Loyalty Practice and word of mouth agency Legends.

Runacus points out that in some ways this merger is just the beginning of their development plan: “I got my first agency job in the last downturn and I learned that recession can be a catalyst for innovation. Our next steps are already prepared. As a planner by trade I want us to help our clients understand exactly what is and isn’t working, and then to implement a virtuous circle of improvement. To do that we need to push our existing data offering and possibly even consider new research tools.”