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IPG PR firm Golin buys The Brooklyn Brothers

Interpublic PR agency Golin is buying ad agency The Brooklyn Brothers for an estimated $40m including earn-out. Brooklyn Brothers operates out of New York, London and Brazil and employs 130 people.

Golin president-international Matt Neale says: “We’re not looking to create the next 60-second commercial but the majority of our clients are looking to us to move into paid in a major way and we like the work that Brooklyn Brothers is doing. It’s serious paid work and there are a lot of dollars, euros or pounds behind it, but they’re earning their audience’s trust as opposed to disrupting to gain the audience and that sits well with our heritage. We had looked at 60 agencies and talked to 30 of varying skill levels, but pretty much all creative and a lot were heavy in content, which is one of the areas that is important to us.”

Brooklyn founding partner Paul Parton says:”There’s a meeting point between the traditional creative agencies and the earned disciplines now and they’re coming together around content and social, and it just felt to us that we’re a creative agency, but all the work we’re best known for really is content-based and earns an audience.”

Brooklyn will stay an independent brand although it will pitch with Golin for some business. Parton and fellow founders Guy Barnett, George Bryant and Jackie Stevenson are staying on. Here they all are, with Golin’s Neale (on right) in one of those daft and uninformative pictures designed to make agencies look creative.

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IPG has a pretty good record in managing its smaller agencies – The Martin Agency and R/GA being two examples. Golin, formerly Golin Harris, was acquired by IPG PR giant Weber Shandwick. It has revenue of about $300m with 2000 or so employees.

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