November 2007
Zustek Corporation Acquires Adverb Media; Launches Full–Service Digital Marketing Agency – Zeta Interactive
New company combines talents and technologies of five digital marketing leaders to provide customers with complete marketing solutions
NEW YORK, NY – November 15, 2007 – Zustek Corporation, a leading provider of email marketing communications solutions, today announced it has acquired Adverb Media, an award-winning interactive marketing, technology, and services agency. Adverb Media is comprised of DigitalGrit, a direct response and search marketing firm, Temel, a brand strategy and creative agency, and RelevantNoise™, a technology firm dedicated to mining the social Internet for business intelligence. With this announcement comes the formation of Zeta Interactive, a company that combines the talents and proprietary technologies of all five firms, offering complete, cross-media, multi-channel marketing solutions to its customers worldwide. Al DiGuido, a digital-marketing veteran and CEO of Zustek will continue as CEO of Zeta Interactive.
"For the first time, the industry has an organization that has a suite of services and technologies that allow a marketer to truly leverage the promise of an integrated, interactive-marketing strategy," said DiGuido. "The days of working with multiple agencies and specialists with disparate platforms are coming to an end. We have assembled the best technology, services, and people to provide our customers with a one-stop solution for their marketing challenges and objectives. We are truly excited to partner with Adverb, who we believe represents the best in the business, and look forward to an incredibly exciting future together."
The announcement comes following significant developments in the digital-marketing arena as companies look to acquire digital assets and gain a foothold in this expanding market. A key differentiator for Zeta Interactive is the company's proprietary, in-house technologies. With technologies from Zustek and Adverb, Zeta Interactive offers Fortune 1000 companies state-of-the-art, interactive-marketing solutions, incorporating email communications, SEO, social media mining, web development, strategic and creative services, plus, offline and online advertising development. Its wide array of digital marketing platforms and technologies include:
- eBizMailer™– A high-performance, email deployment, automation and analytics platform designed to allow businesses to take advantage of email as a marketing medium.
- InsightGrit – A powerful analytics and reporting technology, developed specifically for search marketing, allows for real-time optimization and campaign management. The system is flexible enough to fully integrate with a company's existing web analytics system to provide a comprehensive view of campaign results from impression to conversion.
- Sonar™– A web-based, social media mining technology that allows clients to view the "buzz" surrounding their business interests, brands and products and measure the success of their marketing efforts.
- FeedBlaster – An innovative, search-engine optimizer that takes a client's site content and makes it visible to search and shopping engines.
“We are forming Zeta Interactive in response to the growing demand for full-service firms that help businesses leverage the Internet in its entirety to drive significant business results," said Dan Lynn, CEO of Adverb Media. "With Al's leadership and expertise in the interactive marketing industry, we are confident this acquisition will enable us to not only quickly become a leader in the marketplace, but help move the marketplace itself to an entirely new level in which marketers come to expect an integrated, cross-media approach.”
Headquartered in New York City, the newly merged Zeta Interactive now has more than 300 employees worldwide located in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, New Jersey, Texas, Rhode Island and India. The company serves more than 200 clients currently, including a broad range of Fortune 1000 companies such as, Time Inc., Sony Electronics Inc., and LiveNation.
The announcement is one in a series of acquisitions that began last month, when Zustek announced it had been acquired by Investcorp Technology Partners, a major private- equity investor in small-and medium-sized technology businesses in North America and Europe, who then named DiGuido as CEO.
“We believe this latest acquisition is a win-win for all involved and is clearly filling a need in the marketplace," said Alex Guira, managing director at Investcorp Technology Partners. "With the acquisition of Adverb, Zeta Interactive has tremendous potential for growth, and is well-poised to quickly become an industry leader.”
About Zustek
Zustek is an industry leading email service provider, delivering high–quality email marketing software and services to world–class clients. The company works directly with their customers to create successful online marketing programs that will help increase revenue as well as build stronger customer relationships. Already a partner with many Fortune 1000 companies, Zustek has been recognized by both Forrester Research and Jupiter Research as a leader in the email marketing industry. For more information on Zustek please visit: www.zustek.com.
About Investcorp Technology Partners
Investcorp Technology Partners is a leading private equity investor in small and medium–sized technology businesses in North America and Europe. The group focuses on growth buyout, corporate carve out and take–private transactions, generally investing between $15 million and $40 million of equity. Investcorp Technology Partners is part of Investcorp, a leading provider and manager of alternative investment products with over $13 billion in invested assets under management. Further information is available at www.investcorp.com.
Media Contact:
Matt Rizzetta
Dukas Public Relations
212–704–7385
matt@dukaspr.com