Candid acquires UK-based Brand Potential

With this acquisition, Candid is taking its first step to grow their marketing services platform in the United Kingdom.

News provided by

Nov 15, 2021, 05:36 ET

AMSTERDAM, Nov. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Candid announces that Brand Potential – a UK brand consultancy - is joining the Candid platform. The founders of Brand Potential – Mary Say, Tom Lovett, and Chris Molloy – will join the platform as partners of Candid and will continue to fulfil the role of the management and growth of Brand Potential. With this newest expansion, Candid is taking its first step in the internationalization of the platform.

From left, standing: Youri van der Mijn, Tom Lovett, Chris Molloy. Seated: Gérard Ghazarian, Mary Say, Rudiger Wanck

Brand Potential was founded by Mary Say, Tom Lovett, and Chris Molloy in 2010. The head office of the agency is located just outside London (Windsor) and employs over 30 consultants. Brand Potential is a high-end brand consultancy and works with clients around the globe such as Unilever, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Costa Coffee, Johnson & Johnson, innocent drinks, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Kaspersky. Brand Potential specializes in transforming brands to achieve accelerated growth through insights, innovation, brand strategy, and design. Brand Potential has a unique positioning in that it not only combines commercial and creative delivery, but also has a Brand Due Diligence service to assess the potential of brands when going through merger or acquisition.

Brand Potential will continue to operate under its own name as an autonomous agency within the Candid platform. This is in line with Candid's T-shaped philosophy, which allows agencies to continue to play to their strengths and entrepreneurial spirit; whilst opening up the skills of all relevant communication, digital, design, and media disciplines to all clients of all agencies within the Platform.

"We really like the cultural fit with Candid and the agencies which operate on the platform. Candid understands that agencies are at their best when they continue to work in the way that is most motivating for their people and clients," explains founder Mary Say. "By joining Candid, we can continue to realise our mission to unlock potential for our clients and their brands, both in the UK and internationally, while still retaining our values and culture. We look forward to working alongside the other Candid agencies and opening Brand Potential Amsterdam."

Candid's CEO – Rudiger Wanck – says, "Through our platform strategy of bringing together and fostering strong independent agencies in a unified collective, we have been able to develop the fastest growing agency group in The Netherlands, already surpassing several of the global agency holding groups. The acquisition of Brand Potential marks our first step in the United Kingdom and the starting point for the development of the Candid platform strategy outside of the Netherlands. With Brand Potential, we immediately gain traction at a brand consultancy level, providing a strong starting point for the further development of the platform in the UK. The platform agencies and clients in the Netherlands will also immediately benefit from the knowledge and experience of Brand Potential, and we look forward to launching Brand Potential in Amsterdam very soon."

Chairman of the board Gérard Ghazarian adds: "When we started with Candid as a platform strategy, we always envisioned The Netherlands being the starting point for an international proposition. Brand Potential adds a new and important discipline to our growing platform and marks the start of our ambitions to achieve growth in the UK. Candid is unique in its approach to the market in bringing together agencies as part of a platform approach, meaning that agencies retain their individuality whilst at the same time operate at scale within the wider group. Candid is also unique in that we are fully independent* and agency leadership and talent within the organisation have a shared ownership into the platform."

*note for the editors: Candid is owned by it's founders Gérard Ghazarian and Youri van der Mijn and Rudiger Wanck who recently joined as the CEO of the platform.

About the Candid platform

We unite the creative and strategic strengths of – among others – media agencies Stroom, de Media Maatschap, and M2Media; the digital agencies Online Company and Havana Harbor; the social media expert Daily Dialogues; advertising agency XXS; PR & corporate communication agency Coopr; marketing innovation agency Cogonez, and brand identity specialist Millford.

In recent years, Candid has developed into the first fully integrated communications platform in the Netherlands. We bring together the skills, cultures, and identities of these powerful, independent, specialized agencies on a single platform while also ensuring that they collaborate optimally thanks to our candid company culture based on transparency and our T-shaped organization.

In this way, Candid provides marketing and communications solutions for which data provides the inspiration, technology provides the support, and creativity drives the process. Above all, we achieve growth for our clients.

SOURCE Candid