Allen & Gerritsen (A&G) has launched a customer experience technology agency, CeCo Digital, to help marketers build customer loyalty and loyalty beyond sales.
The agency tapped Bain partner Raj Heda to lead the new spinoff.
CeCo Digital aims to provide marketers with integrated systems across communications, customer experience and loyalty. The agency will create technologies, digital products and business systems that improve the customer experience.
It will operate as a standalone offering from A&G, but the two will work together when clients are looking for what the other agency offers.
“It’s no longer enough for marketing to attract people,” said Ryan Mulloy, chief customer officer at CeCo Digital. “Marketing managers need customers to stay longer, spend more, and tell their friends about you. And it requires technology partners who understand the role of brand, differentiation and audience needs.
Why a separate agency?
In 2021, A&G acquired Carter Edwards & Company, led by Mulloy, a former Sapient executive. The company, which provided brands like Dunkin’ and Biogen with customer experience solutions, was folded into A&G and Carter Edwards’ name disappeared.
“It was a huge success, until it wasn’t,” admitted Andrew GraffCEO of A&G.
The offering gave A&G’s customers access to customer experience and technology capabilities, but removing the Carter Edwards name made it difficult to capture the market. A&G is not known for its cutting-edge customer experience solutions, but rather for its communications and creativity, Graff said.
As a result, neither tech talent nor brands were knocking down the doors to join what many considered a traditional advertising agency.
“We were having difficulty attracting companies specific to this sector under A&G, which also became a talent challenge,” Graff said.
Although CeCo will operate under the A&G umbrella (on the agency’s website it is billed as CeCo, along with A&G), Graff hopes that as a separate brand, CeCo can now attract people and projects what she needs to succeed.
Leading with Technology
CeCo is what Graff calls “Carter Edwards 2.0,” with Mulloy leading the agency while Heda comes in to lead the technology practice.
Graff called Heda “a remarkably different type of technology manager than agencies typically have.”
As a former partner at Bain & Company, with experiences at BCG, Sapient and PWC, Heda has led large-scale digital transformation efforts for brands including Morgan Stanley, Sony, Fidelity, Molina Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Unilever and American. Airlines.
“CeCo gives me the chance to see the difference my work makes,” Heda said in a statement. “At large consulting firms, I focused on developing strategies for clients who would build the technology themselves and often neglect marketing needs. Here we can engage with the CX vision and apply a human lens to create authentic customer value.
The name CeCo has a double meaning. CeCo was the street Mulloy grew up on, but it’s also short for Carter Edwards Company. Currently, the group has about 10 employees, most based in A&G’s Boston office.
For Graff, CeCo is an opportunity to support its integrated agency services with strong technology capabilities.
“It takes too much work to attract a customer, and only seconds to lose one. You can’t have a large, integrated agency without really thinking about great operational technology,” Graff said.
