Dutch Media and First Move Digital announced their merger last week as the new full-service creative consultancy, OtherBirds.
OtherBirds offers traditional and digital marketing, branding, and advertising services across Australia and globally.
Former AFL Richmond player Ben Hollands founded Dutch Media in 2010. As a result of the merger, he steps into the role of director – alongside First Move Digital’s Daniel Copsey and Alex Roberts – and general manager of OtherBirds.
Hollands spoke to Mediaweek about making the merger happen, Dutch Media’s regional presence and growth for OtherBirds’ team and clients.
Making merge-ic happen
The general manager revealed that initial discussions of a merger with First Move Digital’s Copsey and Roberts began last year before Christmas and centred on how they could support each other’s services.
“We started using them for some of our work, and not long after that, we figured that there were some synergies between what we do and what they do from day to day. Some complementary services they provided and others that we provided fitted like a glove,” he said.
“It wasn’t until about April/May this year that we started talking about merging those services seriously. Then the discussion moved to an actual business merger,” he added.
Hollands shared that their initial discussion centred on values alignment, support of staff, and company culture before getting into the finance and corporate structure.
Hollands explained that there are two parts to the new business, the full-service agency, which is the combination of Dutch Media and First Move Digital, and a white label product – Agency Stack – which is a business that supports other agencies.
The right team blend
The merger brings to total team size to 45, which Hollands called a “pretty significant” increase from Dutch Media’s original team of 12 spread across Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Hollands noted that collectively, they now have an extensive, diverse and talented team that can deliver web development, apps, gaming, social media, strategy, marketing communication and marketing.
“It’s a big team, a good blend of youth and experience, different perspectives. I’m very excited about what it looks like from a personnel perspective,” he added.
Left to right: Daniel Copsey, Ben Hollands, and Alex Roberts
Keeping its regional presence
Dutch Media proudly held a base in Albury, along the New South Wales border with Victoria. Hollands noted that the merger will not affect its regional presence and will enrich OtherBirds’ reach.
Hollands explained: “Sometimes when you hear the word merger, particularly in larger organisations, the next word that follows is redundancies because organisations are looking for ways to make the structure more efficient.
“None of that’s happening in our case. Some of the Dutch Media guys get more responsibility, and some of our more inexperienced team members will have some senior people around them that will be able to help foster their growth,” he said.
The general manager continued: “But because of our client base, we want to serve regional Australia and the capital city.
“So, we’ll have an office in Sydney and Albury. Our head office will be in Port Melbourne. We will also have team members in Auckland and New York,” he added.
With the team spread out across different parts of the world, Hollands noted that working remotely for the past two years amid the pandemic has prepared their team to build connections online.
“To be able to manage the team and the guys being able to build connections and relationships and all that sort of stuff is certainly much easier given what we’ve been through and COVID,” he said.
“It’s also given me the confidence that we can make the offices work in different locations,” he added.
The impact of the pandemic
The pandemic impacted many agencies, and it was no different for Dutch Media, particularly during the early stages of Covid in 2020.
Hollands recalled: “I think everybody probably took a bunch of phone calls over a week or two. Campaigns were cancelled when we were in lockdown, so it had a significant mostly on our media billings.”
“Some of our creative and production projects were postponed. Nearly all of that went ahead at some point, but certainly, things got postponed that impacted us from a revenue perspective for a while,” he added.
The OtherBirds general manager said the digital side of the business was largely unimpacted.
“Our digital media spend stayed about where it was, and we did lots of web development and lots of eCommerce work through that period,” he said.
“We [Dutch Media] suffered throughout 2020 and periods of 2021. That impact played a role in our merging.
“So us coming together to use the Agency Stack business as support. As we were looking to rebuild, we thought we would look for external support rather than hiring our people internally,” he added.
Hollands said that as things return to normal, turnover at the end of the financial year is almost back to pre-Covid. “We thought now’s the time to bring the two businesses together and tackle the next few years ahead,” he added.
Growing their pool of clients
Hollands shared that client lists from Dutch Media, and First Move Digital will be unchanged as they join OtherBirds.
“The great thing about having all those wonderful people is what we can offer our clients. There are clients on both sides of the business for whom we hadn’t been performing all those services.”
Hollands said that combined with First Move Digital, they can offer clients everything under one roof.
“There are cost efficiencies, and there’s consistency in messaging. There’s enough diversity in the talent pool to keep things fresh and innovative and constantly bring new ideas,” he said.
“So, from our client’s perspective, we expect them to get the same level of service that they’ve always experienced, but we’re excited about going up another level,” Hollands added.
Continuing its IMAA membership
Hollands noted that Dutch Media had been a proud member of the IMAA, and he hopes it will continue with OtherBirds.
The general manager said that it was a discussion yet to be had with the agency’s partners and with IMAA CEO Sam Buchanan.
“Our partnership from a Dutch Media perspective has been wonderful. We’ve made some great connections and built some good relationships and see a huge benefit in the IMAA,” he added.
Hollands shared that being part of the IMAA has been helpful with filtering and delivering information from TV networks, radio stations, Facebook, and Google.
“I think they do a great job connecting us with all of those media partners, but delivering the information for our media team, particularly, is most critical.
The general manager noted that through the IMAA, they built great connections and networks, as well as research and media partnerships, which has benefitted them.
“We’re certainly keen to continue that, and I can’t see any reason why the new agency entity wouldn’t be shuffled across,” Hollands added.
See also: Dutch Media and First Move Digital announce merger
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Top image: Ben Hollands
