BDS Marketing LLC is the agency behemoth you more than likely never heard of.
The Irvine firm is behind the strategies of some of the largest retailers and brands in the world, which turn to it to up their in-store and online game plans. That’s everything from social media and website help to enticing consumers to a store to construction on retail buildouts.
The end goal: sell-through.
Its work comprises both brick-and-mortar and digital services and, “more importantly, connecting the dots between the two, making sure consumers are getting a consistent experience,” BDS CEO Ken Kress said.
A healthy amount of work coming into the agency and recent acquisitions have helped the business scale, prompting it to lease a 58,000 square foot portion of Toshiba’s former campus in Irvine, for its new global headquarters.
Tenant-improvement work has begun, with a move expected by June. An open floor plan, collaborative workspaces, high ceilings and concrete flooring are part of the mix.
It’s twice the roughly 30,000 square feet BDS has been in for two decades, also in Irvine, where employees, two or three at a time, have sometimes had to share cubicles due to shortage of space.
Big Boutique
The company employs 200 workers locally and more than 7,000 in total across offices in Ohio, Chicago and Manhattan.
The Windy City location opened to serve clients in different time zones. The others came via acquisitions, a big part of the company’s growth.
BDS launched in 1984 as a boutique agency handling field marketing, such as promotions and consumer sampling events. The first buy occurred in 2006 with Channel Partners. Later acquisitions added Keystone Marketing Specialists, RMSe, wowbrands and in 2018, MAG.
BDS Solutions Group LLC was formed in 2016 via a partnership with Tampa, Fla.-based merchandising agency Apollo Retail Specialists, Washington, D.C. private equity firm Juggernaut Capital Partners and Palm Beach PE investor Palm Beach Capital as a platform to support the broader organization’s various service arms.
A growing portfolio of companies and services has meant added expertise in everything from digital marketing to pop-ups and experiential event services for clients.
BDS Buys
“We have a very aggressive growth strategy in place,” Kress said of possible deals, “a combination of organic and acquisition.”
Follow-own agency acquisitions could be a mix of those that bring new service offerings or to help BDS expand its geographic reach.
Kress sits from an interesting perch, seeing trends perhaps before they’ve even taken off. The CEO said interest in augmented and virtual reality work continue to be top of mind for retailers. The momentum around pop-ups also doesn’t appear to be waning, he said.
Kress and team, he said, remain focused on innovating on the service offerings in a bid to stay “one step ahead of the ever-shifting changes in consumer purchase patterns.”
