MDC Partners has acquired Forsman & Bodenfors, creating a global partnership between the Swedish creative agency and MDC shop Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Both agencies will retain their brands.
Forsman & Bodenfors, founded in 1986, is led by CEO Erik Sollenberg and Chairman of the Board Anna Qvennerstedt.
The 300-staffer shop took the top prize for PR at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last week for “The Organic Effect” for client Coop. The winning campaign, which furthered a cause and generated impressive sales results, continues the trend of creative agencies winning the top prize in the PR category. It also won a Glass Lion for its work on SK-II’s “Marriage Market Takeover,” which aimed to change the conversation about China’s “leftover women,” a term used to refer to unmarried women 25 and over.
“We’re going to work together when it makes sense on new business and existing clients,” said Chuck Porter, chairman of CP&B. “Obviously Forsman & Bodenfors has enormously potent creative. They don’t have a global network, so for them, working out of our various offices, partnering with our office will be helpful and for us, tapping into their creative resources and their processes which will be really helpful.”
He added that Forsman & Bodenfors is not reporting into CP&B or vice versa, and said the agencies don’t have to worry about client conflicts because they remain separate operations. The shops are currently working on a few clients together, but Mr. Porter declined to disclose further details.
Going forward, creating consumer products and partnering with brands that the agency has equity in is going to become an even bigger part of CP&B’s business, said Mr. Porter, and the partnership “is a great way to make that practice much more robust.”
Mr. Porter said CP&B has had a great year so far, particularly in Brazil despite the economic difficulties the country is facing.
CP&B works with the likes of Infiniti, Domino’s, Kraft Heinz, PayPal, American Airlines and The Hershey Company.
