The New York Times is bulking up on marketing muscle.
On Friday, the Gray Lady announced that it had bought the digital marketing agency HelloSociety from Science Inc., an incubator and portfolio holding company. Financial terms of the all-cash deal, which closed on March 11, were not disclosed.
Founded in 2012, HelloSociety originally specialized in creating marketing campaigns distributed on the social network and visual search company Pinterest. HelloSociety tapped Pinterest power users (accounts with large followings) to promote marketing content on the social network. According to a 2013 Coins2Day report on the company, one of its top influencers was a mother of four children who used the money she gained from HelloSociety to help buy a home. The company also uses its influencers to spread advertising on other popular social networks like Instagram and Vine.
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The New York Times Company (NYT) will merge HelloSociety’s technology and staff into its in-house advertising agency T Brand Studio, according to the announcement.
“We believe the best digital advertising will increasingly take the shape of high-quality visual programming, and we are building out T Brand Studio’s services and capabilities to deliver on that promise,” said The New York Times Company executive vice president and chief revenue officer Meredith Kopit Levien in a statement.
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The acquisition is the latest in series of deals by big media companies to bolster their advertising reach and create custom marketing content for clients.
Last September, News Corp (NWS), which owns the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, purchased the advertising and video distribution company Unruly for roughly $176 million.
In February, Time, Inc. (TIME)—the parent company of Coins2Day—bought New York-based marketing firm Viant Technology for an undisclosed amount. Viant is the parent company of the once-hot social network Myspace.
