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The marketing and media agency North & Warren acquired the experiential agency Interluxe on Thursday, creating a combined firm designed to serve the marketing needs of luxury brands, co-chief executive Nick Van Sicklen told ADWEEK.
North & Warren financed the acquisition with an unspecified amount of investment from the private equity firm Mountaingate, which closed a $570 million round of fundraising in January. The involved parties declined to share the financial specifics of the transaction.
The resulting company will have around 100 full-time staff and take in roughly $50 million in annual revenue, according to Van Sicklen. When combined, the firm will generate revenue through luxury and commerce media (35%), events and activation (45%), and agency services (20%).
“Experiential and activation is so important to the luxury space,” Van Sicklen said. “We had not worked with Interluxe before, but we had identified them as the leader in the space and knew they would be the ideal partner.”
Van Sicklen and cofounder Matt Carroll will serve as co-CEOs, while Interluxe founder Emma Gwyther will stay on as president. They will remain the three largest individual equity holders in the combined entity and will make up its board of directors, alongside a board member appointed by Mountaingate.
The merger reflects the ongoing value of a premium experiential portfolio amid the increasing saturation of the digital marketing ecosystem, particularly for luxury clients.
It is also a testament to the continued strength of the luxury goods market, which has remained resilient even as consumer spending more broadly has wavered. According to data provider Statista, luxury goods in the U.S. alone are projected to reach $100 billion in 2025 and grow at an annual rate of 4.3%.
Combining media, agency services, and events
Van Sicklen and Carroll cofounded North & Warren eight years ago as a hybrid firm capable of providing marketing services to clients and operating a portfolio of publishing titles.
Its roster of owned-and-operated media outlets includes the editorial brands Kingdom, Cool Material, Remodelista, Gardenista, and Full-Time Travel. The company has either spun up or acquired the brands, and it has plans for future M&A to further bolster its portfolio.
These publishers produce content that attracts an organic audience of design and luxury enthusiasts, which yields valuable first-party data for the firm. The sites’ advertising inventory also enables North & Warren to sell those surfaces to clients looking to reach those audiences in contextually aligned settings.
Through its agency services business, North & Warren runs digital advertising for clients like American Express and Four Seasons on their websites. As a part of this offering, it provides end-to-end services, such as account management and sales outreach, for brands that want to keep their data out of open programmatic exchanges.
The agency began shopping for an experiential portfolio to add to its business because so many of its luxury clients wanted an in-person element for their marketing plans, according to Van Sicklen.
Interluxe hosts more than 200 activations per year, and its client list includes blue-chip brands like Ferrari, Bugatti, and Sotheby’s. The experiential agency will also help North & Warren further showcase its own editorial titles. When combined, the two companies will have more than 250 clients.
North & Warren has dogeared a portion of its newly raised capital for investment in new staff and infrastructure. It hired the former general manager of Vogue, Pam Abbott, in January, and plans to add headcount in sales, marketing, and operational functions, according to Van Sicklen.
The primary focus of the investment in infrastructure will be to increase audience growth across its owned-and-operated portfolio.
“Our strategy has been predicated on a buy-and-build thesis, which will allow us to surround the passions of the luxury customer set,” Van Sicklen said. “Every one of our clients had some desire to do events, and now with Interluxe we have that capability.”