Miroma Group acquires in-housing agency Maker Lab

The Miroma Group, an independent global marketing-services group, has acquired Maker Lab, a Singapore-based agency that builds and embeds digital teams inside client marketing organisations.

Maker Lab has 150 people working in APAC markets including India, Malaysia and Thailand, supporting projects for clients including Google, Netflix and Taco Bell on strategy, ideation and execution.

The company expects to scale Maker Lab rapidly, to 300 people by year's end, expanding to Europe first and later to North America, Marc Boyan, founder and CEO of The Miroma Group, told Campaign Asia-Pacific. At the same time, Miroma aims to bring its other offerings to APAC.

The acquisition fills a gap in the group's overall offering for clients, who are increasingly interested in a hybrid model of in-house capabilities and fit-for-purpose agency support, Boyan said. "It's like a football team," he said. "If you don't have a right back, you need a right back."

Matt Shoult, founder and CEO of Maker Lab, said in a release that joining The Miroma Group will provide his compay with the infrastructure and client base to build on its success in APAC and accelerate growth in the US and Europe. 

Maker Lab, and similar companies like Oliver Agency, offer marketing teams the ability to quickly add specialists in the production and distribution of digital content, as well as data science, while maintaining control over their first-party data, Boyan said. The approach gives marketing teams a chance to try different configurations while maintaining the flexibility to discontinue parts or all of the inhouse agency team and add permanent positions when and where they see fit.   

Boyan says young tech companies are a client base showing particular interest. “There's a couple that we're talking to that need three or four people, but that three or four could end up being 20, 30 or 40," he said. "Having the ability to say, ‘Maybe let's not manage it’ is something some of these founders really like, because maybe they don't necessarily 'get' marketing. They're busy building the business, making sure that the execution is correct with the supply chain and everything else. And they'll rely on us to deliver a solution that fits what they're trying to do.” 

As for his plans to bring more of The Miroma Group's offering to APAC, Boyan is eyeing a full-scope expansion. “We'll replicate everything that we have in the UK, so it’ll be content studios, creative, media buying, performance, data—the whole stack.”

The company's brands include creative agency Fold7, brand-experience agency Hyperactive, creative production company Contented, creative agency Twelve AM, communications agency Way To Blue, brand consultancy Raven, digital development studio The Project Factory, and sport- and entertainment-oriented digital agency New Stance. 

The group currently has a 40-person digital studio in Syndey, known as Miroma Project Factory, that builds apps and websites.

The group earlier this month completed an acquisition that formed Miroma SET, a sports, entertainment and technology marketing company. This move saw the company add shareholders including Scott Belsky, founder of Behance and chief product officer at Adobe; Tom Hulme, head of Europe at Google Ventures; Justin Stefano, founder of Refinery 29; Michael Kassan, founder and CEO of MediaLink; and Ben Lerer, CEO of Group Nine Media.