Independent spirit
Ramos emphasized that Gut will operate on its own and keep its brand name. Miami-based Gut currently has employees spread across seven offices in Miami; Buenos Aires, Argentina; São Paulo, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Its current roster of 60 clients globally includes Anheuser-Busch InBev, Mercado Libre, Google, Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola and Tim Hortons.
Gut will report financially to Globant, whose shares closed at $216.71 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.
“Even though we are now part of a public company and proudly part of Globant and public, our independent spirit is the same,” Ramos said.
Globant brought up the idea of buying Gut a year ago, Bigio and Ramos said. Bigio said he and Ramos had to reimagine their goal for the agency, which is to become a “top five global creative network.”
In 2018, Ramos expressed a goal for Gut to win independent agency of the year at Cannes by 2022, a goal it achieved this year. (He also said at that time that he was starting Gut “to be independent forever.”)
“We think that this is a massive opportunity to create a unique offering that is going to be a blend of these two universes,” said Patricia Pomies, Globant’s chief operating officer, noting that Globant has been looking for ways to expand what it can offer clients by offering more creative-related solutions. While this won’t just include marketing efforts, Gut will be able to help across different areas such as product launches and business transformation.
Globant has been acquiring agencies for the past couple of years, including marketing and advertising agencies such as Spain’s Habitant, Denmark’s Vertic, Columbia’s Ad_Bid and Mexico’s KTBO.
Latin roots
Globant’s roots also were a key factor, the Gut founders said. Globant was founded in Buenos Aires in 2003 and now has its headquarters in Luxembourg.
“We want to show that a Latin company powered by another Latin company can be one of the top five networks of this world,” Bigio said. “And that is a very big challenge and it's a renovation of our dream because our dream was accomplished this year.”
Globant has been acquiring agencies for the past couple of years, including marketing and advertising agencies such as Spain’s Habitant, Denmark’s Vertic, Columbia’s Ad_Bid and Mexico’s KTBO.