Ignition DM group bought by Claydon

Omnicom-owned direct marketing agency Claydon Heeley Jones Mason has bought the Ignition Marketing Group and its sister company Ignite-mail for an undisclosed sum.

Ignition is to be renamed Ignition Claydon Heeley. However, Ignite-mail’s name will remain unchanged.

Following the acquisition, the agency has formed a new group – Claydon Heeley Group – which is to be chaired by Jon Claydon, who is also chairman of Claydon Heeley.

The group consists of Agency Republic, Ignition, Ignite-mail, Claydon Heeley and Direct Partners in the US.

Ignition Clients include Warner, Amazon, Costa and Thomas Cook. Ignite-mail is an online direct marketing agency. Its clients include Friends Provident, Next, Homebase and Iceland. It has billings of about &£36m.

Claydon Heeley says it will pass some projects to Ignition, and claims this will result in a recruitment drive at Ignition, particularly in the creative department.

Ignition chairman Andrew Sutcliffe says: “Our business is at the stage where the advantages of plugging into the Claydon Heeley name and Omnicom’s global network outweigh any benefits of remaining independent.”

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