 HEADQUARTERS: Irvine. Expected move to Costa Mesa in January.
AGENCY IN A NUTSHELL: Digital, media, social media, creative. Clients include Vans, Warner Bros., Discovery Networks, Mothers and Nextstar among others.
BACKGROUND: SCS was born out of the 2016 merger between Schiefer Media, started in 1985 by CEO James Schiefer’s father Carl Schiefer, and ChopShop. The combined entity, two years later, acquired digital production agency Fuel in 2018.
LATEST NEWS: A raft of hires in May added six to the team, including Chief Development Officer Glenn Rogers, Vice President of Media Andres Torrente and Brand Solutions Director Kelli-Rae Coughlin.
The agency in August merged with Swarm, an Austin-based digital performance marketing agency, expanding the agency’s footprint to Texas. Swarm CEO and co-founder Tom Ellis is now SCS chief revenue officer, while co-founder and Swarm Senior Vice President of Marketing and Implementation Alexa Ellis is SCS COO.
The combined firm totals 100 people in Irvine, Atlanta and Canada.
ON DIGITAL: “I think data will continue to play a crucial role and diving deep into that data and how to automate and visualize that data and drive insights will be even more important in the future. We’re very focused on being agile and nimble and doing marketing in real time.”
ON M&A; ACTIVITY: “I think the overall economy is strong. The stimulus has helped out and the macroeconomics are helping that to a certain extent. Brands are doing exceptionally well and interest rates are low.”
–Kari Hamanaka
