Creative agency undergoes successful year 12 months on from merger

A MIDLANDS digital marketing agency has experienced a successful 12 months trading one year on from undergoing a merger.

Marketing agency Dialhouse and graphic design agency Creative Design Print Web (CDPW), both based in Coventry, merged to form Parallel Creative in October 2015.

Since the two companies joined forces, turnover for the first full accounting year has seen growth of 30% based on the combined turnover of the two businesses for the prior year.
 
Parallel Creative currently employs eight people and provides a rounded corporate identity service – including graphic and website design, branding and digital marketing – to more than 180 clients across sectors from retail and sport, and education to charities.
 
Work includes creating lifestyle brochures for national flooring company Millboard through to online games for the University of Birmingham. It also counts Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Group among its client base.
 
Graham Harrington, one of Parallel Creative’s directors, formerly of Dialhouse, said: “Prior to joining forces we were looking to grow Dialhouse. One of the things we realised we needed to do was to bring greater creativity into the business.  We also recognised that I was the only sales person in the business, which was limiting.
 
“We approached the Government’s Growth Accelerator programme and began looking for another agency to join forces with.
 
“We eventually met Ricky and Leigh from CDPW and realised they had a lot of skills to complement our team. From their perspective they felt stifled by the fact that every time they won a new client, they couldn’t develop the relationship further as they were focused on producing design and artwork.”
 
Leigh Torrance, creative director at Parallel Creative, added: “The first year has gone incredibly well and we’re continuing to recruit to ensure we can offer all of our services to bigger clients.
 
“Corporate videos are proving very popular for us at the moment, in line with consumer consumption habits. Many of our clients require us to provide websites, branding, marketing communication campaigns and other digital marketing.”
 
Parallel Creative, who are based on Queen Victoria Road in Coventry city centre, were advised on the merger by Coventry and Leamington-based accountants HB&O.

Wayne Gutteridge, director at HB&O, said: “It’s brilliant to see two businesses coming together to help one another, and ultimately grow.
 
“We’ve spent time carefully planning the best way to bring both businesses together and the results clearly show it was the right decision.”