by Herman Manson (@marklives) Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired a majority stake in experiential marketing agency Crimson Room Communications. The acquisition will serve as a launch pad to establish psLIVE in South Africa.
psLIVE is a global Dentsu Aegis Network owned experiential agency with offices in London, Milan, Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Copenhagen 
and Helsinki. Clients include Twentieth Century Fox, Canon, Sony, Adidas and Allianz. psLIVE is managed by Posterscope globally.
Crimson Room Communications will continue to be led by agency founder Philippa Viljoen. The agency will be rebranded psLIVE over the course of the next twelve* months.
Dawn Rowlands, CEO Dentsu Aegis Network Sub-Saharan Africa, says Dentsu Aegis Network is fully focused on growing psLIVE globally. The experiential agency, now three years old, has seen strong uptake internationally.
Dentsu Aegis has been looking for an acquisition in SA for around two years. It picked Crimson Room because of the quality of the work they do, the processes and tools the agency already has in place, its ability to scale quickly, a reasonable cost base and a good culture fit, says Rowlands.
Crimson Room currently employs 16 permanent members of staff and has around 1500 promoters.
Posterscope and psLIVE runs as two separate entities but it is expected that they will collaborate fully to service clients. It enables the group to offer a wider range of services to existing and new clients outside just the bought environment.
Craig Page-Lee, Group Managing Director Posterscope sub-Saharan Africa, says Crimson Room offers a strategic fit with Posterscope’s South African business, the Out-of-Home business offering ambient and experiential advertising as well as shopper marketing.
Viljoen says the partnership will allow the agency to provide a broader product offering to clients and leverage global best practice.
* Information updated 2014/08/18
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!