Irvine-based marketing firm Advantage Solutions Inc. hasn’t slowed down on the acquisition front, despite apparently getting cold feet on an initial public offering.
The privately-held firm said this month that it had bought New York-based mobile advertising firm Jun Group Productions LLC, a mobile video and branded content advertising platform that serves a number of large U.S. advertisers and publishers.
The company’s advertising technology enables its network of 100 million people to watch videos and visit the web pages of Fortune 500 brands on mobile devices, tablets, and laptops/desktops, according to New York-based investment bank Petsky Prunier LLC, which worked on the sale. Financial terms were undisclosed.
Jun Group was a portfolio company of New York-based private equity firm Halyard Capital, which invested $28 million in it three years ago.
Jun was profitable at the time of that funding deal—the first venture capital investment in the company—according to reports.
Since the investment, “Jun Group has been a true market leader in app-based mobile brand advertising,” said Bruce Eatroff, Halyard Capital’s founding partner.
Along with New York, Jun Group has offices in Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Los Angeles as well as Orange County—it opened a location in Laguna Beach three years ago.
OC “is a hotbed of engineering talent,” company officials said at the time of the expansion to Advantage’s backyard.
Jun’s technology will help Advantage offer its clients the ability to advertise to “tens of millions of consumers in brand-safe environments,” according to a statement from Advantage.
President Jill Griffin said the partnership “places Advantage at the forefront of multi-channel, holistic marketing that’s based on consumer preference and personal interest.”
Jun creates custom audience segments based on poll questions then delivers ads on smartphones, tablets and laptops/desktops. Advantage said combining Jun’s capabilities with its own shopper marketing tool, called MomentAware, gives clients more targeted ads to consumers.
MomentAware uses real-time geo-location data “to help brands and retailers scale consumer engagement and deliver results to the bottom line.”
The acquisition is the second of late for Advantage; last month it purchased Mill Valley-based agency Beekeeper Marketing. Beekeeper helps brands develop and execute Amazon sales, marketing and supply chain strategies.
Terms of that deal weren’t disclosed either.
Advantage has used an aggressive acquisition strategy for growth, with more than $500 million in reported buys since 2014, when it was bought for a reported $4.2 billion by a pair of private-equity firms, Leonard Green & Partners LP in Los Angeles and CVC Capital Partners in Luxembourg.
Advantage filed for an IPO last year, but the proposed offering has not moved ahead since then. The registration statement has not been withdrawn, but there’s no indication that the company is still planning to go public anytime soon.
Memory Lane
Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor North America is rolling out a new campaign for the 2019 Santa Fe SUV, and it’s all about families spending quality time with each other.
The automaker this month began airing three new television spots, each running 35 seconds, to show that its latest SUV is the “quality time machine.”
One spot titled “Not Flying” shows a family of four bonding on a road trip, making pit stops at a local diner and even spotting a caribou on the road, which it avoided thanks to the car’s collision warning.
The commercials are meant to highlight the benefits of family time as well as the “family-friendly preventative safety technology” features in the Santa Fe.
Hyundai’s agency of record Innocean USA in Huntington Beach also plans to create a series of YouTube videos that would help car shoppers learn more about the Santa Fe. In-market and Facebook pre-roll ads are also being introduced.
The company this month reported its highest August SUV sales in its history, selling a total of 27,678 vehicles, up 30% year-over-year.
Bits & Pieces
Newport Beach-based fine jeweler and timepiece retailer Traditional Jewelers has rebranded as Hyde Park Jewelers this month. Hyde Park is the name of its Denver-based parent company, which purchased the OC retailer in 2012. … Anaheim councilmember Kris Murray joined San Diego-based public affairs firm Madaffer Enterprises this month. Murray will help clients work with city, county and state officials.
