Montreal: The principals of Publicite Martin, a full-service agency, and Sprint Communication Marketing, a direct response and promotions shop, have formed a holding company bringing the two agencies together. Both agencies will continue to operate under their own names.
A management team made up of Mario Totaro, vice-president and chief operating officer at Sprint; Jean N’el, who holds the same positions at Martin; Jacques Paradis, president and ceo of both Martin and Sprint; and Yvon Martin, chairman owns 100% of both agencies.
While Martin declined to state the combined agency’s capitalized billings for the year, he says the new holding company will be among the top 10 in the Quebec market.
No further acquisitions are under review. ‘First, we have to digest. The main point with this deal is the people,’ says Martin.
‘We want both entities to have the potential to develop their own growth with their own clients even though they will often work in synergy on mutual clients,’ says N’el, adding growth in traditional advertising in the Quebec market is virtually flat, while growth in the direct response category is much higher, 10% to 15% a year.
Paradis says there’s movement of ad dollars from traditional advertising to direct response. In Sprint’s case, he says, business volume has doubled in the past five years.
Martin and Sprint together employ 45 people. Sprint will be housed in the same downtown building as Martin on rue de la Montagne.
Martin’s clients include Bank of Montreal, Quebec Tourisme, Via Rail, Casino de Montreal and Para Paints. Sprint’s major clients include Videotron, Cogeco, M. Muffler, Northern Telecom and Super Ecran, the French-language pay-tv movie channel.
Richard Leclerc is vice-president, French creative. Laurie Seline is vice-president, English creative.
No client conflicts have emerged from the merger, says Martin.
