Digital technology and marketing agency Positive has joined the Candid Platform. Candid CEO Rudiger Wanck and Positive's Julian Reiter explain a strategic fit that will pave the way for enhanced services and international expansion.
"We have long been campaigning about the power of collective thinking," says Julian Reiter, CEO of digital marketing agency Positive. "In a marketing world that has become enormously complicated, Marketing Directors need to have more than one source of truth and advice to help them navigate the multidisciplinary channels they need to master. No longer can they rely on individual specialist agencies supporting them in silos, they need to know they have integrated teams discussing integrated solutions, with smart and experienced people working together in the same room."
As a digital agency, Positive covers a lot of bases. In addition to consultancy work, the company designs and builds websites and digital ecosystems, undertakes systems integration projects and has considerable expertise in performance marketing. All of this requires a diverse range of skillsets across multiple disciplines, and as Reiter observes, a strength of Positive is that its people work collectively towards the creation of joined-up digital marketing solutions and strategies. "We can look at the bigger picture and how all the touchpoints of a customer's digital journey can affect a difference between a negative or a positive outcome ," he says.
Reiter's commitment to harnessing the power of cross-discipline collective thinking goes some way to explaining one of the key factors driving Candid Platform's acquisition of Positive. The focus on the collective as a means to deliver the broad range of services that brands need in an ever-more-complex marketing world is writ large Candid's philosophy - of building a platform on which autonomous marketing and advertising agencies can build their own businesses while also co-operating with others to deliver a holistic service, whatever the requirements of clients.
As announced earlier this month, Candid Platform acquired Positive, as part of an ongoing expansion from the Netherlands into the UK market. Under the terms of the deal, Positive's founder, Tim Miller will take an ambassadorial role while CEO Reiter will continue to lead the business. As CEO Rudiger Wanck explains, "the acquisition of Positive enhances Candid Platform's own collective capability. Since last year, our focus has been on growing our platform in the UK," he says. "And we were very keen to bring a key digital agency on board." Positive was particularly attractive because its acquisition brings on stream many capabilities that were hitherto missing from Candid's portfolio - in particular, the solutions architecture, UX and technical ability to build websites and digital ecosystems. Equally important, as part of the platform, Positive will itself have access to a much bigger market of clients and geographies.
An International Reach
The other side of that coin is that Candid's structure -autonomous agencies offering non-competitive services and working cooperatively - will enable Positive to expand its offer to existing and potential clients. "Candid has phenomenal creative agencies and we are looking forward to introducing them to our clients," says Reiter. Positive's arrival on the Candid Platform follows a previous acquisition of UK-based innovation and transformation agency, Brand Potential in 2021. Both deals signal a serious intention to establish a significant UK presence, not only as a means to tap into a large market but also as a springboard for further international expansion. "Our focus now is on the UK," says Wanck. "But this is just the start.''
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