Ogilvy & Mather, a US based advertising & marketing agency and a division of WPP, will be acquiring a majority stake in Hyderabad based digital technology company PennyWise Solutions for an undisclosed amount. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Following the deal, PennyWise said it will serve as the digital technology and production center for Ogilvy & Mather in India and will power the digital delivery for the agency's India network and O&M APAC network. PennyWise, founded by Anand Morzaria in 2003, provides digital services including custom application development, mobile application development, SEO, digital listening, online consumer response management systems, data analytics and business intelligence, network support and infrastructure management services. The company claims that its current client portfolio includes Vodafone India, Johnson & Johnson and WPP Agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Soho Square, among others. On the other hand, Ogilvy offers solutions such as advertising, digital marketing, customer engagement, public relations, healthcare communications, activation and shopper marketing among others. Digital ad/marketing agency acquisitions in the past year Over the past year or so, we've seen lots of consolidation in the advertising and marketing agencies. These are: - In July 2013, Mumbai-based digital and social media agency Gozoop acquired yet another Mumbai-based social media agency Red Digital. - In July 2013, HT Mobile Solutions acquired the digital marketing business Webitude for an undisclosed amount. - In May 2013, Japanese advertising major Dentsu acquired 80% stake in the digital advertising agency and consulting firm Webchutney for an undisclosed amount. Prior to this, it had acquired a 51% stake in Mumbai-based Indian advertising agency Taproot India in August 2012 while Ad2c, a JV…
