You read that right: Twist Image will now be known as Mirum! (And, yes, I’m really excited about this!)
So, what’s going on? Last May, I announced that Twist Image had been acquired by WPP. A lot of people have been asking me about this experience and how it has been. So far, it has been great (and, I’m fully aware that we are still in the honeymoon phase). I explained the rationale in a blog post titled, Why Did I Sell Twist Image (And Other Questions)?. Since then, we have had a lot of interesting moments. We were able to win our first North American piece of business in Treasury Wine Estates and shortly after that, we announced Jon Finkelstein as our new Executive Creative Director. Over the past few months, we decided that it would be in our best interest to join a group within the WPP network that had similar goals, skills, culture and entrepreneurial spirit. Over the course of several months of meetings, we wound up meeting and connecting with other digital marketing agencies that had been acquired through JWT (now known – again – as J. Walter Thompson) who were extremely similar to us, but occupied different geographic regions. There were conversations about pulling all of these agencies together to unite and create a brand-new global digital marketing agency. It was a great opportunity for us to get in on the ground floor and build something new, so we decided to become a founding partner of this new global digital marketing agency.
Welcome to Mirum.
The word Mirum means “amazing” and “wonder” in Latin. So, what does this really mean? Mirum is now in 17 countries, with 40 offices in places like New York, San Diego, London, Paris, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Brazil, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Sweden, Finland, India and – of course – Toronto and Montreal. We employ over 2000 amazing digital marketing professionals. The nine agencies that are rebranding, like Twist Image, to Mirum are: Digitaria (US), XM (Asia Pacific), Casa (Brazil) Activeark (Finland, Sweden and India), Lunchbox (Los Angeles), i-Cherry (Brazil), HeathWallace (London), and Quirk (South Africa). Clarus (Mexico) and X-Prime (France) will also join Mirum, but will not be changing their names. The process to get all of our brands aligned (including websites and social media spaces) from our current brands to Mirum will take place over the next few weeks, as we edge closer to launching the official website (and more).
How does this affect you and the Six Pixels of Separation community?
It doesn’t. If anything, this blog, the Six Pixels podcast, the two business books (Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete), my contributions to places like Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review and Inc. Magazine have all put my thinking (and what Twist Image is all about) on a global stage (which I am forever thankful for). Speaking events brought me all over the world for the past decade. The challenge that we had – as a digital marketing agency – was convincing brands that we can work on the same global platform that our content delivered on. Now, it can. Now, it will. My role stays the same. It will be augmented with some kind of global position around digital strategy and thought leadership, which only makes me hungrier to create more compelling and interesting content for you. So, I hope you will come along for the ride! Ultimately, Mirum was created to ensure that we can serve our clients better, and ensure that they are leading the way in digital marketing.
Day One. Day One.
You can read the full press release here: Introducing Mirum: A Modern Global Company.