WPP Acquires Blast Radius

WPP has acquired Blast Radius, an interactive agency based in Vancouver. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Once the deal goes through, the 11-year-old agency will become part of WPP’s Wunderman network.

Gurval Caer, Blast Radius’s CEO and president, will remain with the company, as will its management and 400+ employees. Blast Radius maintains offices in Amsterdam, New York, London, Toronto and San Francisco. The company generated $41.8 million in revenue during 2006.

“The online side of our business is growing immensely,” Wunderman CEO and chairman Daniel Morel told Direct Newsline. “People are spending 20% of their time online, but only 5% of advertising dollars are going online. We are going to experience quite a bit of growth, and we are acquiring resources to services the large clients we have.”

For Wunderman, Blast Radius may have presented new opportunities in social network advertising. Wunderman’s announcement of the deal highlighted the agency’s “unique approach to social networking.” Does this mean that Wunderman is looking to cash in on social networking?

“[Social networks are] a big aspect of what is happening on the Web,” said Morel. “People go [them] on to engage each other, and to talk about products. Nobody has found the perfect way to leverage that aspect, but we are all trying to find ways creatively to engage those folks who are using those networks and communications with each other.”

The Blast Radius deal is the latest in a Wunderman acquisition spree. Earlier this year it took control of interactive agencies Aqua Online, which is based in South Africa, and These Days, which is headquartered in Belgium. It also acquired a controlling stake in DataCore Marketing, a U.S.-based marketing services firm.

So what’s next for Wunderman? Morel hopes to move beyond what he calls the Web’s two-dimensional nature of static photos and text on a digital page. The next step, he says, is some form of dynamic entertainment with commercial content using rich media.

“I am looking at how brands can be associated with that rich channel,” he said.

The problem is that the players — read “acquisition targets” — in that field tend to be very small. But those that can scale up may find themselves being courted. “I am convinced we have to add that to our arsenal,” Morel said.