Project Worldwide is acquiring Los Angeles-area agency Pitch, the latest move in the ad holding firm's continued expansion efforts.
Project, a privately held parent company that positions itself as a new-school holding company, has been seeking agencies that CEO Robert Vallee said "play well" with the company's suite of other shops. Pitch presented good collaborative potential, he said.
"People are the most important part of the equation," Mr. Vallee said. "When we find we have good chemistry with senior management at forward-thinking agencies, it gets our attention."
Jon Banks and Kim Thomsen opened the Culver City, Calif.-based Pitch in 2008 mostly as a promotional agency. But the shop has since grown into a full-service one, taking on the bulk of Burger King's U.S. creative work and recently adding duties for the Pepsi brand and Meineke. The agency -- like all other Project agencies -- is now fully owned by Project, though terms of the deal were not disclosed. The agency had 2013 revenue of $12.2 million, according to Ad Age's DataCenter, and was just named as one of Ad Age's small agencies of the year, earning the silver award for shops with 11 to 75 employees.
Mr. Vallee said he first contacted Pitch about a year ago, but Mr. Banks didn't think it was the right time for the shop to consider a sale. The agency was also approached by a number of larger holding company suitors, according to Mr. Banks, but the shop's leaders felt that Project most closely aligned with the agency's desire to remain entrepreneurial while tapping into larger resources and a global network.
"Life's too short to work with bad people, so when we looked at who we would want to partner with, cultural fit was definitely the threshold," Mr. Banks said.
