Cannes is a place for celebration, but in some instances that isn’t on stage at the Palais. For Louisville-based OvareGroup, the celebration was in a small bar tucked on a side street over fried chicken and red wine.
Earlier in the year, OvareGroup announced its acquisition of Argentinian agency TogetherWith, choosing to adopt the TogetherWith name in its unity. The “Fried Chicken Meets Malbec” event during the Cannes Festival of Creativity acknowledged both the Louisville roots with KFC, and Argentina’s signature wine, Malbec.
“We have the opportunity to bring the force of our collective power, the force of our united voice, into the market. That’s what brings us together today,” said OvareGroup CEO Brandi Lafontaine at the party.
Creative shop TogetherWith was formerly known as FCB Buenos Aires, but went independent. Starting in 2022, OvareGroup started working with TogetherWith after acknowledging their complementary strengths and seeing their shared growth potential. The chicken and malbec event made the joining official. At the merged shop, Puiggari will be chief development officer, Lafontaine will keep the CEO role, and Heidi Singleton will serve as chief creative.
“We are ‘radically independent’ because we aren’t just independent — we’re employee-owned. No one person has a majority share in the agency,” said Singleton at Cannes.
Employees cannot own more than 5% of the company, which means everyone is invested in a common goal — to help clients succeed.
TogetherWith now works across education, healthcare, food hospitality, consulting and retail sectors, and the company has expanded in Louisville and Miami. In South America, the company has expanded its work with the Jeep brand for Stellantis.
The collective includes health and wellness shop &well and Toronto-based consulting firm Reunion, as well as Power Scopeccio, Infinity Media and Ad Cucina.
Read more about the merger in Campaign US.
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Kyle O’Brien is managing editor of Indie Agency News.
