Digital marketing agency Social Garden has acquired fellow Melbourne-based boutique brand and digital agency The Natives in a move that is aimed at expanding its service offering beyond its traditional property and education clients.
The acquisition will see Social Garden, which is part of the New Home Network, leverage The Natives’ growing focus on e-commerce solutions that the agency says is helping digital-first businesses "thrive".
Founded in 2016 by Tom Brownie, The Natives has established itself as a leader in strategy, brand and digital development, working with clients such as Disney Marvel, Renault and McMillan Shakespeare Group, and high-growth local businesses such as Australian Venue Co, Welly, Inke and iPantry.
"Having worked with Social Garden on numerous projects, joining forces is a natural next step,” says Brownie.
“I’m excited to build on the existing creative and strategy capabilities within the business to round out their offering.”
Social Garden is a data-driven performance marketing and digital transformation agency founded in 2013 by Mike Bird and George Glover.
Bird and Glover are also co-founders of off-the-plan apartment platform Urban.com.au and earlier this year their acquisition of homebuilder comparison site Homeshelf.com.au led the young entrepreneurs to bring their growing stable of businesses under the New Home Network banner.
Glover, the Social Garden CEO, says the acquisition of The Natives will enhance Social Garden's creative and strategic depth, enabling it to continue offering a more complete service to its media buying and advertising clients.
“Creative execution has become a more important component of performance marketing and, when combined with first-party data, unlocks the edge brands need to win in these increasingly competitive digital channels,” says Glover.
“While we’ve always had solid capability in creative strategy, the change we have seen in both advertising and marketing automation platforms has increased our focus in this area.
“When the conversation with Tom came up to combine forces, we jumped at the opportunity.”
Glover says Social Garden has historically focused on the critical industries of property development and education institutions.
“With this latest acquisition, we will combine our technical marketing capability with our increased creative firepower to drive digital innovation in new industries,” he says.
“We are excited to bring our expanded capability and fresh approach to a market that seems to be over-indexed on either end of the creative and technical marketing spectrum when the integration of the two is the key.”
Social Garden employs a team of 65 digital marketing and strategy professionals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.
While The Natives is Social Garden's first marketing agency acquisition, the firm has been active in the technology and media mergers and acquisitions sector, bedding down five acquisitions in as many years.
The most notable has been off-the-plan apartment marketplace Urban.Melbourne, since renamed Urban.com.au, which was acquired in 2018
This was followed by digital real estate publisher Property Observer in 2020 and home builder marketplace Homeshelf last year.
The New Home Network stable was last valued at $40 million in 2022 following a $1 million investment from Carsales.com.au founder Steve Kloss. The group has so far grown much of its operations on the back of consumer demand for greater clarity in the off-the-plan building sector.
Financial details of The Natives acquisition have not been disclosed.
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