NEW YORK — This week, Emerald Holding, Inc. completed the acquisition from Stillwell Partners of all assets comprising Advertising Week, a leading B2B events and content platform for the advertising, marketing, media and technology industries.
Advertising Week welcomes over 100,000 attendees annually to its hybrid events, features over 3,000 speakers annually and produces over 1,000 hours of video content. Its events include Advertising Week New York, as well as Advertising Week Europe in London, Advertising Week Asia in Tokyo, Advertising Week LATAM in Mexico City, Advertising Week APAC in Sydney and plans to expand Advertising Week Africa in Johannesburg.
From June 2021 through Q2 2022, Emerald has so far produced 117 trade shows, conferences and other in-person events, attracting approximately 328,000 attendees and 17,000 exhibiting companies.
Hervé Sedky, Chairman and CEO of Emerald, said: “This exciting potential to join forces with Advertising Week represents an important step in the execution of our strategic initiatives and underscores our commitment to evolving and growing our clients’ businesses 365 days a year by combining creativity and innovation with the Emerald platform.”
David Doft, Emerald’s CFO, who led the discussions for Emerald, added: “We have long admired Advertising Week’s reputation for being at the forefront of technology and serving the influential advertising, marketing, media and technology sectors, something I have personally experienced as an attendee and sponsor throughout my career. Its signature blend of business thought leadership and highly curated experiential events will diversify our collective product offering, enhance our growth profile and enable us to deliver even greater value to our clients and consumers over the long term.”
In addition to live and virtual events, the year-round global events and content platform also offers online courses led by top event management practitioners with its AWLearn curriculum and original audio, video and editorial content with its AW360 podcast.
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The acquisition of Advertising Week also strengthens Emerald’s customer engagement strategy by integrating in-person events, content and commerce. It also allows Emerald to strengthen its leading position in the B2B marketing space, where it leverages its Demand Gen Report media platform and B2B Marketing Exchange in-person event series.
For Advertising Week, this acquisition provides Emerald with access to complementary clients within its business, including a variety of small and medium-sized businesses as well as its established retail and design portfolios. The acquisition also adds resources to drive Advertising Week’s expansion and growth.
Following the acquisition, all Advertising Week employees will join Emerald, including Advertising Week Co-Founder and President Matt Scheckner, Advertising Week Co-Founder and CEO Lance Pillersdorf, and Advertising Week Global President Ruth Mortimer, who will continue to lead the day-to-day operations of the company.
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“Moving beyond organic growth into a larger organization with additional resources is the next step in our evolution as a company for today and tomorrow,” said Scheckner. “We selected Emerald because they clearly value the unique aspects of our brand, are committed to our leadership team led by Lance and Ruth, bring an intuitive understanding of our industry and are passionate about supporting growth.”
Pillersdorf added: “Having completed our first phase of global expansion prior to the pandemic, we are now focused on our next phase of growth. The dynamics of change in the global marketing industry, driven by rapid cultural and technological evolution, have presented us with multiple growth opportunities. Accelerating these growth opportunities around content, education, continued global expansion and our proprietary technology is at the heart of this partnership with Emerald.”
Contact Hervé Sedky at [email protected]; David Doft at 866-339-4688