Kristen Houston Hitch, president of Organic
Omnicom Precision Marketing Group is merging the Organic and Barefoot agencies under the name of Organic but under leadership of former Barefoot President Kristen Houston Hitch.
The combined Organic will have about 100 employees with offices in Cincinnati, New York and Los Angeles, according to a spokeswoman. As president of the combined agency, Hitch will split her time between the Cincinnati and New York offices.
Former Organic CEO Cathy Butler “has moved on from Organic to pursue her passions in mentorship and career development,” according to a spokeswoman.
Organic is celebrating its 30th anniversary as one of the few digital marketing agencies to survive the dot-com glory days, according to Omnicom’s statement.
Among its prominent efforts was backing the successful launch of Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s U by Kotex in 2010, which began to reverse years of share losses to Procter & Gamble Corp.’s Always and Tampax before those brands regrouped and rebounded.
Barefoot, on the other hand, was founded by P&G alums in 2000. It has been a long-time P&G shop, bought by Omnicom’s BBDO in 2008 to help build its P&G relationship, which ultimately took a major hit with loss of the Gillette and Venus brands to Grey in 2013 and 2015 respectively.
Barefoot ultimately became part of Omnicom’s Proximity network, which later merged with Rapp Worldwide and then became a separate agency once more under OPMG. Barefoot listed Exxon Mobil, P&G, Bayer and Mars as clients and 150 employees as of 2021 with the Cincinnati Business Courier.
In its statement, OPMG described the merger as combining Barefoot’s performance marketing expertise and media capability as a complement to Organic’s “digital-first and creative excellence.” Organic will continue to focus on lead agency-of-record and long-term digital transformation assignments.
“Our teams are incredibly talented, and our cultural values are aligned,” said Houston Hitch in the statement. “We are strengthening our combined offering to clients through enhanced capabilities. By combining creative with strategy, performance content, marketing sciences and media services, we will be the go-to partner for both brand and performance.”
“Organic and Barefoot have always found ways to pair offerings to better serve clients, so their integration feels natural,” said Luke Taylor, CEO, OPMG.
