La Poste's Mediapost acquires Parisian marketing agency

La Poste’s marketing subsidiary Mediapost has finalised its acquisition of the French business-to-consumer marketing specialist Mediaprism Group. Just three months after the company acquired another French marketing company, Groupe Sogec Marketing, La Poste said its latest expansion was part of a strategy to become a “major player” in relationship marketing within France and the rest of Europe.

Paris-based Mediaprism boasts one of the largest customer intelligence databases in the French market, with 36 million consumers, 26 million homes and a billion transactions analysed each year in its customer retention and communications work.

Mediaprism, which has been going for some 15 years and had a 20m EUR turnover in 2010, adds around 60 employees to the 13,000 Mediapost has around Europe.

But, as well as its important data holding, the company also boasts consultancy contracts to run communications campaigns for major advertisers including UNICEF, Kawasaki and SOS Children’s Villages as well as others including Parisian water company SEDIF.

La Poste said acquiring the company would allow it to offer its advertisers a “full range” of relationship marketing – work to retain customers and improve customer satisfaction as well as attracting new customers.

This could include strategic consulting, research and development as well as data management and the provision of communications campaigns and loyalty programmes.

La Poste also suggested it could also mean more digital communications options alongside Mediapost’s printed marketing, to allow “local, simple and affordable” multi-channel communications services.

Mediapost chief executive Nathalie Andrieux said: “With the Mediaprism group, we are developing our consulting capability in terms of strategy, communication and enriching our multichannel data offering, benefiting advertisers who now have customer intelligence tools with an unprecedented accuracy.”

La Poste, which operates Mediapost as a subsidiary of its Courier business Sofipost, said Mediaprism’s directors Frédérique Agnès and Eric Depoorter would remain in place as directors and shareholders.

Mediaprism’s directors said in a statement that joining Mediapost meant “shared success” for the two companies.

“Having been able to refocus our business in recent years in customer intelligence, strategic and creative consultancy, having developed a truly unique offer starting from the data, breathing consumer intelligence throughout the communications chain, we are happy to place the Mediaprism group in an even higher development dynamic.”