Ocean Group announced Thursday the acquisition of MediaCo Outdoor, Manchester’s leader in OOH digital and backlight premium large formats, through its highly successful partnership with Manchester City Council.
The deal, for an undisclosed cash sum, significantly strengthens Ocean Group’s national footprint and leading position as the premium large format provider in London, Birmingham and Manchester, ranked the UK’s top three cities for total advertising spend.
This accelerates Ocean Group’s dual strategy of developing iconic digital and premium formats, and mirrors its acquisition of Signature Outdoor in Birmingham last year, which was warmly welcomed by both agencies and brands.
Commenting on the move, Tim Bleakley said: “MediaCo Outdoor and Manchester City Council have worked collaboratively and tirelessly together to build a truly state of the art portfolio across the city, to the mutual benefit of taxpayers and the business community alike.
“The entire Ocean Group team is committed to furthering this great work and using our unique offering across the UK’s top three cities to drive growth in the medium and offer advertisers a compelling network.”
MediaCo Outdoor managing director Mark Wardle said: “This is a very exciting development for Manchester and I look forward to seeing how the portfolio evolves in the coming years.”
Commercial director of MediaCo Outdoor Richard Blackburn said: “We have built up some unique products and innovative trading models and I’m delighted we are passing on the baton to the Ocean Group, who share our ethos and, we believe, are an ambitious partner who will take the business to the next stage.”
Richard Blackburn is presenting ‘The End of the Beginning for DOOH’ at The DailyDOOH Media Summit in London on May 19.
Richard led the planning and rollout of Manchester’s CityLive interactive digital media network last year and he will share with the audience his observations and insights that affect the DOOH industry now, and in the future. He will discuss why the industry is in danger of cooking (and eating) its own golden goose, why data is everything, big and small, and why you should not assume people that will behave as you expect.
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