So today The Barbarian Group is excited to confirm that Cheil Worldwide is acquiring a majority stake in the company. The co-founding partners myself, Benjamin and Keith will still be leading, and partners in the company, along with Cheil, and we will remain in our roles: Benjamin as CEO, myself as COO and Keith still overseeing creative, tech and user experience, now as our Chief Experience Officer, or CXO. This is still The Barbarian Group, we’re still called The Barbarian Group, and we are still committed to making things awesome. This is the next evolutionary step in our adventure towards making things awesome.

For a while now, we’ve felt that we may have hit a point in our DIY evolution where we started thinking that the next step for us would be a big one. Our industry is growing, and the needs of our clients are growing, and we’ve been growing too, but we want to be bolder and more capable, and we are excited that Cheil can provide that opportunity for us. With our creative leadership and their global network (over 1,500 employees in 25 countries), we’re setting the stage for the next great phase of this company. Increased potential for greater R&D. The ability to really delve into solving marketing’s difficult problems. More capabilities for our clients.

Benjamin made a comment the other day that we are excited about fighting the battles of the future, and not the battles of the past, and Cheil offers us just that opportunity. We’re not one of a billion digital shops on their roster, and we’ve truly gotten along great with everyone from Cheil we’ve met.

This is about growth and the future. We started this company with a borrowed $500 and have never had an investment to grow from. We’ve managed to grow and expand our services over these last eight years, but we want to do more. We know we want to do even more for our clients. With this deal, we’ll be working to extend our services into the areas we have yet to offer, strengthen those that we’re already working in, and geographically expand so we can meet the demand from new clients. We’ll be looking at other regions, over time, as well. As ever, we want to be able to offer any brand, company or entity that needs digital marketing services the best. This will help us in that quest.

Anyway, yes, super exciting. I’d like to take a moment to thank all of our wonderful employees and our awesome clients, who have truly helped us and rocked it out through this challenging year. This company is nothing without you, and we are forever in your debt.

Happy holidays.