Diegem, June 22nd 2021 – Customer Collective, the new group centered around ‘customer ownership’ that closely connects The House of Marketing, Upthrust, Grava and Dignify to one another, announces its first major international acquisition. The group welcomes a new member on board with the acquisition of Fightclub, one of the biggest full-service agencies in the Netherlands. With the arrival of this new partner, Customer Collective strengthens its offer in creative and performance marketing on the European market.

 

Customer Collective was launched at the end of March 2021. “To grow as a company, you need to realize that your client is your most important asset. Investing in your customer only makes sense if you truly ‘own’ him. To do so, you have to understand your customers’ needs, develop products and services that will fulfil those, create powerful customer experiences, build strong relationships through up- and cross-selling and tackle the churn. It takes a unique combination of strategy, digital, data, technology and creativity to achieve that”, Managing Partner at Customer Collective Grégory Delens explains. Customer Collective unites different companies with those areas of expertise: The House of Marketing, market leader in strategic marketing consulting and interim management, its spin-off Upthrust, a trailblazing growth marketing and digital product studio acceleration office, Grava, an innovative digital performance agency and Dignify, a strong player with expertise in the implementation of CRM and marketing technology.

 

Only two months after its creation, Customer Collective is already welcoming a new partner on board: Fightclub, a Dutch brand and performance agency based in Breda. Last year, the company was elected the best full-service agency in The Netherlands – category large – in the FONK100 election (the Dutch platform for the creative and marcom industry). Their services include, amongst others, the set-up of campaign strategies, creative development and digital and social performance marketing. “Having a firm grip on your customer means having a maximum ROI and now that’s something we, as an agency, can truly guarantee with the support of Customer Collective as a partner to ensure further growth”, Stefan Nuijten, Managing Director at Fightclub, says.

 

Valuable asset

“With Fightclub joining our collective, we will be able to support our customers even better as we did before”, Grégory Delens comments. “The company has been a strong player in the market for the past thirty years and has a very diverse portfolio with customers such as Fit For Free, DPD parcel delivery service, Porsche, Mora and Driscoll’s. Their expertise and knowledge about brand and digital performance marketing, content and creation are a great addition to our group.”

 

“Fightclub is a perfect match with the way we want to continue to position growth hacking and performance marketing in the European market. Kick-ass. No bullshit. 100% result-driven marketing and showing sales results that make the bottom line of companies grow”, says Dennis De Cat, Managing Partner at Upthrust.

 

Stefan Nuijten explains: “Fightclub has become one of the biggest and leading full-service agencies in the Netherlands in only a few years’ time, on a fully independent basis. However, what we do – brand activation and performance marketing – is only a part of the customer journey as developed in the past few years. It’s impossible to visualize this journey without data and technology, but it’s something you don’t simply add on as a marketing agency. You need the best specialist and (data) architects to do that. At the level on which we’re doing business with our customers, you can no longer rely on your (own) start-up for projects of that size. Therefore, joining forces with Customer Collective, as a specialist in data, technology and growth marketing, is the next logical step.”

 

International ambitions

With Fightclub joining Customer Collective, the group now consists of 225 (digital) top talents. “When Customer Collective was launched, we deliberately chose to maintain the individual companies as such”, Grégory Delens explains. “This allows our talents to continuously develop themselves within their own area of expertise and to safeguard each entity’s culture. All while bringing together complementary consultants for our customers’ projects. We will always start by looking at the end customer’s needs and keeping that in mind, we set up a team with profiles from the different entities that will be able to take on the challenges.”

 

While all the founding entities of the Customer Collective – The House of Marketing, Upthrust, Grava and Dignify – have Belgian roots, the group has been active abroad for a while. Besides offices in Brussels, Mechelen, Antwerp and Genk, Customer Collective has offices in Berlin and Leiden – and now also in Breda. “Our companies start to work on projects for customers in Europe more often. This is the first large foreign acquisition for Customer Collective; internationalization is an important aspect of our growth ambitions”, Grégory Delens concludes.

 

 

About Customer Collective

Customer Collective helps companies to build strong relationships centered around their most important growth asset: their customer. We call it ‘Customer Ownership’. The end customer is at the heart of every activity, including identifying their needs, the creation of products and services to fulfil those, building customer experiences and developing relationships through up- and cros- selling and tackling the churn. This calls for a unique combination of strategy, digital, data, technology and creativity. Customer Collective focusses on 5 building blocks and therefore joins forces from The House of Marketing, Upthrust, Grava, Dignify and Fightclub. As opposed to other players on the European market, the companies work closely together. For each project they select the best profiles with complementary expertise and skills to have the best possible impact.

 

Customer Collective is powered by Down2Earth Capital and Quanteus Group.

 

For more information, go to www.customercollective.eu.

 

About Fightclub

Fightclub became one of the biggest agencies in the Netherlands on a fully independent basis. We believe that in marketing, it’s always about winning: whether it’s market shares, brand recognition, sales or an award. And to win, every piece of your puzzle has to match, from your brand strategy passing through the core creative idea and social media, to your Google AdWords. Fully integrated, measurable and focused on ROI. Fightclub is a creative agency that is driven by results, just like a digital agency. And we are a digital agency that can come up with the same witty ideas as a creative agency. Because a strong brand means nothing if it doesn’t convert, and a digital strategy doesn’t stand a chance without a strong brand.

 

For more information, go to www.fightclub.nl.