Table of Contents
PLANO, Texas — Consumer product sales and marketing specialist Crossmark plans to buy national marketing agency New Concepts in Marketing Inc. (NCiM).
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Crossmark said Thursday that the acquisition will add to its event and shopper marketing capabilities, creating North America’s largest in-store marketing services company.
"This acquisition will create value, strengthened relationships and operational knowledge for our retailer and supplier partners," stated Joe Crafton, president of Crossmark, which has over 13,000 event specialists and whose events deliver more than 7 million product demonstration and sampling hours annually.
Charlotte, N.C.-based NCiM, a leader in product demonstrations in the United States, is the agency of record for Bi-Lo, Giant, Ingles, Raley’s, Roundy’s and WinCo, as well as 12 divisions of food and drug retail giant Kroger Co. In addition, NCiM provides turnkey services as the event agency-of-record for several top consumer packaged goods firms in the supermarket channel.
"This acquisition combines two of the best in-store marketing companies in the country," NCiM president Michael Stern commented about his company’s acquisition by Crossmark. "With Crossmark’s strong retailer relationships and portfolio of in-store marketing services, we look forward to solving the business challenges of brand managers, marketing executives and customer business teams."
