In an effort to boost its multicultural marketing capabilities, Aspen Marketing Services has acquired Hispanic agency Experiencia.
Experiencia, which specializes in experiential and promotional marketing, changed its name to Aspen Latino on January 14. The Hispanic-focused agency joins CRM provider Newgen Results Corporation and digital marketing firm Townsend Agency as Aspen’s third acquisition in the last six months.
“We do business with 23 of the Fortune 100 companies out there, and I would say that 90% of those have asked us to strengthen our Hispanic capability,” said Patrick O’Rahilly, president and CEO of Aspen. “It’s obviously imperative that we integrate all these acquisitions with Aspen to get true value, so first of all we have Hispanic offerings available now in all ten Aspen offices nationwide.”
Paul Stringer, managing director of Experiencia, will stay with the company as EVP of Aspen Latino. Aspen Latino will also retain its offices in Chicago and Los Angeles, and some Aspen employees will move to the Aspen Latino office.
“We see it as an opportunity,” Stringer said. “The trend has been the opportunity to tap into the multicultural marketplace, but as a result of increased buying power and case studies that have proven successful and clients challenging us to do our job better, it’s evolving from multicultural to more focused capabilities in the different segments that make up multicultural — which is why we’re Aspen Latino versus Aspen Multicultural.”
“You have to be able to do it as an agency, especially Hispanic marketing, and you can’t ignore it anymore,” added O’Rahilly. “To be a true marketing services agency and to execute for your clients properly, you have to have that discipline in-house, so our major emphasis in 2008 is to grow in this aspect.”
With the addition of Aspen Latino, Aspen now has 850 employees nationwide. O’Rahilly predicts that number to jump to more than 2,000 by the end of this year.
Aspen Latino will be focusing its efforts on clients in the automotive, telecommunications, financial services and consumer industries. Past Experiencia clients included Quaker and Wyeth.
